We start our lives with puzzle pieces. Some puzzle pieces are bigger and larger than others, and some are so tiny, we barely remember where they are anymore. As our lives play on, those puzzle pieces start coming together slowly, day by day. The puzzle pieces of our lives start out blank, but soon color reaches them, some brighter than others. They are all linked together by something. And links are infinite. Everything can be linked, and everything is. All events in a day’s course are key to the next, and the next after that. That is why I believe in “Everything happens for a reason”, because everything is cause and effect in our lives, whether the effect comes within an hour, or a decade, whether it’s good or bad.
Sara, from Love, Sara, has documented her life, with journals, saved emails, newspaper clippings and creative writing pieces. The puzzle pieces of her life come together as outlined in these documents through various authors.
The colors of Sara’s puzzle pieces are dreary and dark at first, morphing slowly, into a dull, yet unique shade of gold. But how they came to be? “Everything happens for a reason,” and her life proved that to me even more than I expected. Not just from Sara herself, either, but because of her friends. Because even if it’s your life or her life, people will and can change it for you. Their decisions, choices, ideas or even a secret can change your life incredulously; and sadly, there’s nothing you can do to stop it… In Sara’s story, it shows unmistakable clues showcasing fate at work. And there’s nothing you can do to stop the links from re-linking…
The First Pieces
Sara started her life unwillingly negative. She knew nothing other than sexual abuse from her father, and resistance from her mother. The lack of love in her childhood was so strong, it scarred her because she found out what love was supposed to be like. And it was nothing like she had expected. She had learned what love was from books and quotes, because literature was her only friend as a child.
Somewhere later on in her lonely life, Social Services were somehow contacted (the reason how was not mentioned) and took her to Elmwood Foster Home. Multiple families had agreed to adopt her, but all had failed. Sara knew it wasn’t her fault that they “returned” her; no matter how much she tried to resist the families. They had failed to try to connect with her, and made up a silly excuse of lies just to send her back to Elmwood. When she came back to Elmwood she had tried to kill herself. She attempted this by stealing pills from her last former family right before they sent her back. Taking the pills in an attempted suicide, she was taken to the hospital when someone found her lying on the ground, unconscious. A deep level of despair had reached her by then, because she thought that her life had nothing else to bring her.
She was sixteen when she had returned from the hospital. She knew that “everybody wants those cute babies, but nobody wants the older kids” at Elmwood. That is, until Carol Reilly came along. Carol already had two children of her own, and although the reason for her want for another child was unexplained, I have my own opinion. Given the description of Carol being a single mother that had “no time for boyfriends”, I think that her heart had been broken too many times. Because a single mother who buries herself in work, leaving no time for a social life, has probably been hurt before. With that in mind, she probably just wanted someone old enough to connect too. Since Sara’s file probably briefly discussed the unfortunate happenings of her life, Carol knew she had been scarred, too… Either way, Carol agreed to a trial period with Sara, giving Sara only the slightest of hope.
Sara moved to Carol’s home, and transferred schools to Westview High. There, she found a friend named Dulcie, who expanded her hope for a new life. Dulcie was only fifteen when she came to be a junior in high school, because she skipped a grade (lucky for Sara). They quickly bonded because they shared the same social rejections from their peers. Dulcie, for being younger, and Sara’s lack of a social life.
Being the teenagers that they are, Dulcie developed a crush on a popular stereo-type quarterback named Jon and told of her crush to Sara. To Sara, he was a stereo-type quarterback, but all that changed when Dulcie started to date him. Dulcie started clinging to Jon and his popular group, because she always had a secret desire to be one of them. Of course, she invited Sara to come along, but Sara worried that she wouldn’t be accepted, and didn’t want herself to become a “stereo-type girl”. But eventually, Sara missed her friend and started to hang out with Jon and Dulcie. But by then, Jon decided not to hang with the other rich kids and stayed with only his two best buds, Ted and Anthony.
Sara was happy, then. She felt secure in her friendly relationship between Jon, Dulcie, Ted and Anthony. A sense of serene and peace fell into place, then. She knew what it was immediately. It was love. She also knew that this was what Jon and Dulcie were experiencing, and worried for them. Especially because Dulcie was only fifteen, while Jon was seventeen, she just didn’t want her to get hurt…
All of this so far, is linked to Sara’s life, for better or for worse. Sara may as well be the sun, and the planets, (or her friends), are circling about her gravitational pull, causing changes in her life -- even though this isn’t happening directly. Because directly, she is quiet, and is a third-wheel to Jon and Dulcie, no matter how happy she is for them.
The Missing Pieces
Jon was a first-class teenager, pressured for high-expectations. Even though he knew how his parents would react, because of their racial, money-based ways, he told them about Dulcie anyways. They forbade him to see her again, only strengthening his attachment to her.
Sara dismissed her silly worry of Jon and Dulcie being together after about a month or two. But right after her guard was down, it was brought right back when Dulcie secretly told Sara that she was pregnant. Now, there was panic for not only her own future, but now Jon and Dulcie’s. They were in love, Sara could tell. And Jon was loyal to her even when he knew she was pregnant. But yet, he made a fatal mistake that Sara can still not believe. He told his parents. Throwing him out of the house with no regret, they took away his credit cars, gas card and money altogether, leaving him with nothing. He was a disgrace to them, Jon knew, leading him into a new realm of despair.
The despair spread to Dulcie, which spread to Sara. Sara also felt anger, then; because Jon and Dulcie had ruined hers and Dulcie’s friendship because of the pregnancy. They wanted to be together, and Sara did not want them to be. The new realm of despair grew too much for the jock that had had everything given to him, so he made a plan.
Being the best and most trusted friend of Dulcie’s, Jon and Dulcie let her in on the plan. It scared Sara to a point of disbelief. She felt like she needed to be with them, no matter what, yet at the same time, she didn’t want to. It didn’t matter though; they made it clear that they were going to anyways. It was only a polite offer, which would not affect their choice. And that choice had been made. They died.
Sara, initially chose to die with them after a lot of thought. But her heavy heart questioned her mind. After back and forth between the reality of death and the fantasy of escaping pain, she realized it was too late. Thought had taken her away the night of the dreadful action.
You see, their choice to kill themselves affected Sara. They were selfish, according to Sara’s opinion. She thought that they didn’t care about what would happen to Sara if they died, and she had told them that. They didn’t listen, of course. But did that really make them selfish? Fate actually took hold of Jon and Dulcie and sacrificed their fates for Sara’s. Because they killed themselves, she learned how to move on, because she knew that that’s what they would have wanted for her. That single thought changed her direction in the fork in the road. She could’ve held onto their deaths, never moving forward. Yet she didn’t, because that tiny thought changed her fate, too.
If you think about it, the road to healing for Sara began with her best friend’s unplanned pregnancy even if she didn’t know it. The pregnancy led to the young couple’s despair and their eventual demise. That was the impetus in which Sara realized that she must move on from the past, burdening no more scarring memories of abuse, and rejection, and lies, and cries.
Puzzle pieces may have the most jagged ridges and edges, but in the end it turns out whole, even if two or so pieces are gone. You can still see the picture clearly without them, which is all you need to be satisfied. Everything happens for a reason…and every last piece of the puzzle will fit in the end.
By Tori Johnson
