Hi Mom

Content Warning: Death

How’s that for the start to a puzzle blog post? But here we are. I love my mom, and her time with us is, unfortunately, coming to an end. I also love the online crossword community I’ve been lucky to be a part of in the last few years, and I want to share a bit of her with you, in a way I know how.

So: this puzzle is a celebration of my mom’s life. She chose the highlighted entries, as they have personal significance for her. “You” in clues refers to my mom.

The puzzle also holds a hidden message. Each clue needs a letter removed from one of its words to make it a valid clue. The words that have a letter removed are still words (or in one case, a single letter that isn’t a word), and the surface may no longer make sense.

Taken in clue order (acrosses and then downs), the removed letters spell out an aphorism I heard often from my mom.

If you solve this puzzle (and especially if you stream it), please let me know; it would mean a lot.

[online] [pdf]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cryptics 101: Hidden

This is the first of a series of small puzzles meant to introduce the conventions of cryptic crosswords to the uninitiated. It introduces and uses only a single clue type: the hidden clue. (You can see the instructions again by clicking the "Info" button at the top right.) [ fullscreen ]
Read more

Mixed Messages

Image
How it started: How it's going:  [solve online]  amuselabs  (for clue images that convey our original intent) Crossweird  (for a more aesthetic overall experience) Gwen and Lila , thanks for letting me make this with you!  Gwen says: Yey my first crossword! Thanks to Lila and Joe for letting me hang and share my ideas but mostly just spam them with stupid emojis that had no relevance to our puzzle. I hope you enjoy 😁 Lila says: what fun it was to make this with two of the most amazing people ever!! and props to gwen for making her first crossword!! couldn’t be prouder of her Thanks to Ruby for the vibe check and Dob for the support!
Read more

Cryptics 101: Container

This is the fifth of a series of small puzzles meant to introduce the conventions of cryptic crosswords to the uninitiated. It introduces and uses only a single clue type: the container clue.  (You can see the instructions again by clicking the "Info" button at the top right.) [ fullscreen ]
Read more