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]

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