Walking down the scummy streets of Brooklyn, New York, nobody would know. Nobody would know that a piece of me that is not visible to the naked eye, is completely missing. I cannot physically keep walking these streets without it. You were the very last puzzle piece of the puzzle I dreamed my future would be. The piece that wasn’t supposed to be missing so soon into my puzzle.

     Everyone will always say the same thing when I talk about my missing piece.“Well, life goes on.” They say. But for me, it doesn’t. Seriously, why does life have to just go on? Why can I not finish my five hundred-piece puzzle that so desperately needs its missing piece to be complete? Just because you’re gone, doesn't mean I can just go back to my regular life and pretend I never had that puzzle. I need to finish my puzzle, but why couldn't the world stop for a moment to help me find my piece? Why does everyone else get to carry on with their days, smiling, happy, walking in the sun, while I’m forced into miserability, under these dark storm clouds frantically dodging lightning just to look for my missing puzzle piece? Why is it that my hair suddenly got so much harder to brush and my prescription glasses can't even fix the blurriness of my eyes? 

     “At some point, you’ll just have to give up,” is another thing I hear often. But while every single bone in my body is aching me to stop and accept that you’re gone, I can’t just give up. You never gave up on me, so why, now, would I ever want to give up on you? I know you’re there somewhere, not anywhere that my eyes can see, but I somehow believe you can still see me. Somedays I believe you could miraculously find your way out of the deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean, to find me. And on that day, I could complete my puzzle, the puzzle I’ve been working on completing for the past nine years.

     Is it too much to ask for the piece back that I lost on April, fourth, two thousand and fourteen? I know exactly where I left my puzzle piece. Physically, I left it in a big white building, filled with glass windows taller than anything I’d ever seen, and a playroom to distract the children of the death-filled hallways and mourning families. But I also left that same piece in the ocean of Coney Island, New York to be with the other missing pieces of my previous puzzles. Even though I know where I left my piece, it’s so unfair that  I can’t go back and get it.

     Losing that last puzzle piece feels like the trajectory of what I thought could be my life, is no longer. I miss the piece of my puzzle that so delicately would hand sew long, gray felt, poodle skirts, with a hint of my favorite color pink detailed on the collar. The puzzle piece with the huge playground and swing set, chain link fence, and a cartoon-looking tree with a hollow hole filled with acorns, right in the center. The piece that rewatched the Avatar movie with me over and over and over again, without ever getting tired of it. The piece that had the power to calm the most untamable grandchildren. The piece that had the most beautiful sewing room with a small, fake, plastic coin slot machine that every grandchild loved. The piece that wouldn’t miss a single ballet recital, choir concert, athletic game, or graduation she was invited to because she never failed to show up for the people she loved. The piece that took me underneath her wing anytime things felt incredibly unbearable. The piece that felt like a real piece of heaven on Earth. My piece of heaven on Earth. That piece was a mother, the mother of the woman that created me. 

     My puzzle piece has been gone for so long that I sometimes forget what it felt like to hold on to it. I forget the long, clear tube that was attached around your neck and set facing into your nose all the time to keep you breathing. I forget how soft and peaceful it felt to hold my hand in your hands. I forget the strong stench of cigarettes that had seeped into the walls of your house and the seats of your car. And I hate myself most for forgetting the way your voice sounds. I crave to hear your laugh, just one more time. I don't ever want to forget how special that puzzle piece was to me, but some of the other things seem better forgotten.

     I would do anything to find that puzzle piece and tell her about all the adventures I took to find her. I wish my puzzle piece could’ve seen me start high school, or even had seen me turn nine years old. I wish she saw me get my own car and finally get my license after what felt like an eternity. Most of all, I wish she could see me graduate and accomplish all that I dream of. I know in some unique way, she still saw and can see those things. She even probably saw some things I’m not proud of doing. But there’s nobody I’d rather have protecting me, especially in my home above the clouds.

     I don’t want you to just reside in my mind as a faint memory, you will reside in everything within me because I am a piece of you. You are permanently a part of me, and this life that I live does not go on without you. No matter how many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years go by without my missing piece, my life will never be the same.