My dad and I have always bonded over the game Sudoku - my sister never caught the bug and my mom already has enough puzzles to solve. It is always be a race between us to see who could finish the home-paper Sudoku first. When I went to college, mid-global-pandemic, to a town I had never been to before, Sudoku was a stable practice in a very unstable time. The game brought immense comfort, reminding me of my dad and the essence of all things home. And in my head, three states away, I was still racing him. 

And he was racing me - but with the delay of snail mail. Sophomore year, he started sending me the Sudoku cut out from the hometown paper. I kept every single one he sent for the next two and a half years.

My dad shows love in nearly every way - gift giving, words of affirmation, actions, and most importantly, daily notes, drawings, and clippings. He understands what is special to people, how to make them feel so, and that it can often come down to the smallest thing.

The sudokus kept from these years of mail make up the papier-mâché layers. The hummingbirds are for his mother - the one who taught him love, and all it’s many forms. She was the matriarch of our hysterically enormous family, both in size and love. She passed away this past Spring and we are able to still see her in hummingbirds with their light and joyful spirit.