14
December 2021
GOOD NEWS
Piece by Piece Piece by piece, the puzzle pieces that complete the picture of our lives. One of the aspects I love about how a picture begins to take shape is discovering the pieces that were snapped into place before I was born and how puzzle pieces of someone else’s picture were destined to fit together with mine. I discovered this tree along our creek that runs into Max Lake when we moved into our home in 2000. I imagined the stories behind the names. I envisioned teenage laughter and fun on a particular day when chores and schoolwork were distant thoughts. Recently I learned that though a puzzle piece of my life may not have carved her initials into that tree, the left side of the creek she knew well. In the sharing of the picture of her life, I no longer had to imagine what may have been. She handed me pieces
of her part in building the foundations to a neighborhood I call home and the Bloomingdale community I call my hometown. She was between the ages of 12 and 14 when she moved into the home on the left side of the creek. Her mom would charge $1.00 for people to either camp by Max Lake or utilize one of the 6 boats for fishing. Her father auctioned many a valued possession to be able to move his family to their home. Her first paying job was detasseling corn in the fields of our neighborhood. She shared her mom’s creativity in meal making that wisdom would later reveal was a way of stretching food to feed five. Of her mother’s generous heart to strangers who could earn themselves a night’s stay in a cabin by that tree. She shared the seed she would continue to water in her lifetime; her father’s unwavering de-
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termination, and that the best realized dreams include country living and family. She left to earn her degree at Michigan State; she returned to raise her family with her beloved printer. (He published the Bloomingdale Advertiser inherited from his father who once called it the Bloomingdale Leader.) While growing up, she gathered additional pieces to build a picture of life shaped in the forms of loyalty, humility, gratitude, kindness, and relationship-building. Relationships. The most vibrant colors of every puzzle piece. Friends who loved to camp in 49 of the 50 states, play cards on Saturday nights, and eat breakfast at surrounding community restaurants such as the Shagnasti. Friends whose shoulders were leaned on when life down turned. High school students for twenty-five years; she the eyes and ears for the
parents and a parent fill-in for the kids. After all, it is a village which helps raise each child. And it is a founding member of a community whose roots have grown deep into the soil that once walked beside a tree on the left side of the creek. At that time, she did not know that many years later she would send Christmas cards to a mailbox on the right side of the creek sharing her joy of watching a dog run down the driveway every day. A card that communicated not only hello neighbor and wishes for a very Merry Christmas. It would be a card that communicated the joining of puzzle pieces that complete a beautiful picture of neighborhood belonging.
e Christine Hassing Author/Mentor/Speaker
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