The Rock Story

So I said I’d write up the story behind giving someone a rock. Now many will immediately draw a connection to Charlie Brown. “I got a rock…” This however is not the reference. You see, in a home in which 13 people reside on a single income, money is quite frankly beyond tight. My Grandparents however always made life amazing. We had no idea we didn’t have everything there was that a person could have. We sure thought we did. We had love, hope, joy, and laughter. You couldn’t really ask for more.

My older brother and I were a year apart in school; however we went to a special school, for what they called “academically talented children” back in the day. Not sure what they call them now, but it was a school for kids with an IQ over 150. Apparently I was a smart kid, not sure what happened… Anyways, since the classes were about 10 kids in size a field trip would be 2 grades at a time. When field trips came I got to go to these amazing places with my big brother. That just made it that much better. I had very little experience of doing anything where he was not involved, and to have the opportunity to spend all day of a school day with him rather than just pieces were wonderful. Having two children go off on a field trip at one time however is simply not cheap. My Grandmother would give us both money, not much but some, and tell us to get something memorable from the gift shop. The shiny coins would sparkle in our hands, and two wide eyed kids stared at them imagining all the amazing things we could get. Then we would look around and try to figure out how exactly we could get 11 gifts out of that money. That number got reduced until we agreed we really only needed to get 3, one for each of our Grandparents and one for my Great Grandmother. We’d ask my Gram what we could get her. Each time she’d say the same thing. “If you love me, bring me a rock. I love rocks, bring me one you see that’s pretty or different, or unique from where you go.” Our Grandfather and Great Grandmother would agree a rock was the way to go for them too.

My Gram had a collection of hundreds of rocks from all the previous field trips and children that had gone places. Each rock had a certain discernable mark that would place it on the index card that held the information of which child it came from, where it came from and when. Though she knew most simply on sight, the rest of us could look and know as well. So we would go on these field trips and search for just the perfect rocks, in the parking lot, anywhere. You had to find just the most perfect rock; it had to be special so that it would read as more than “gray rock” on the index card. It had to have personality, be special in some way, truly special to make its mark as a really good rock.

Luckily we had understanding teachers, and like most of the other kids in this class we were odd kids, so they gave us some leeway on things like, “I need to find a good rock to bring home.” They’d shrug and figure for a kid growing up in coal country a rock would be the only souvenir that would be going home. They’d give you some time to find that rock. When we had found our rocks we’d go on with the field trip. When we went to outdoor places it was a literal bonanza of rock finding. We’d spend the entire time scanning the ground looking for “the rock”. Indoor field trips, science museums, and the like were much trickier. Walks to and from the bus were your singular opportunity to find just the right rock. My Gram has numerous asphalt balls on her rock display from these field trips. Each of them unique in some way, though still asphalt balls.

We never questioned as kids why she would ask for a rock. We didn’t know we didn’t have just as much money as everyone else in the world did, all we knew is Gram wanted a rock, and well she’d get one! Why was never even thought of, she had her reasons, and whatever they were, they were more than enough for us. We’d pick up rocks on the way home from school, when playing in the field, whenever and wherever we were when a rock caught our eye we’d bring it home for the collection. I never thought of this as odd, after all I’d been rock picking my entire life for her gifts. Our aunts would take us down to the old closed coal mines when Autumn came. We’d sneak in between the boards and climb around in the old carved out mine looking for prisms. The coal workers used to toss these away as trash. We however saw gold when we’d find one. We’d scour the ground all creeping slowly looking for something to sparkle in the thin stream of light. If my Gram knew we were in the mines she’d kill us all so we couldn’t get dirty, which is incredibly hard to do mind you in a coal mine. So we had to get a prism, and stay clean, or make sure we wore our play clothes and then go sliding with cardboard boxes down the shale hills, so we weren’t just somewhat dirty but quite plainly filthy from head to toe. Each year we’d find our small treasures, each finding just the right prism to give her for Christmas, and stash it away somewhere until the special day. She always cried when she opened them, each one brought more tears of happiness. We never really knew why, just that she loved these little prism rocks.

Years later someone asked me why in the world I’d give my Gram a rock of all things. I didn’t really know. She wanted them, so we gave them to her. We never asked why. She liked rocks I guess was my reply. I asked her then why a rock, of all the things she could have, why a rock. Her answer was profound. “A rock is a gift of love. In order to give someone a rock, what you’ve given is your time. You search for it, carefully picking just the right rock that you think they would enjoy for some reason, for its beauty, because it’s unique, because it’s different, but there’s always a reason. You give a rock because a rock is priceless. It represents the effort you’re willing to give them in giving them just the right rock. You thought about that person enough and cared enough to spend that time finding them something you cannot buy, something that is one of a kind, and something that no one else in the world could ever have another of. That is the grandest gift you could possibly give, because each rock, is simply a gift of you, a piece of you that you have given in order to give that simple thing.”

We all had our own rock collections. Small rocks we had found here and there that caught our eye. We all saw them as precious as if they were gem stones. When my aunt went to Egypt she brought us all back film vials of sand, because sand is small rocks after all. That’s how we came to include sand in the rock collections.

I got on a bus one day, to go and see my father, when I was 17, and decided to keep on going. I traveled the entire United States on buses, made a circle around the whole country. I worked small jobs for the elderly women I’d met along the way, fixing stairs, fences, painting garages and other assorted work they themselves could not do. I was always paid with a hot homemade meal and some money. At each place I’d find just the perfect rock, and put it aside for my Gram. When I finally made it all the way around to Pennsylvania again, I dragged my suitcase up to the door and presented her with rocks from all over the country. Petrified rock from Oregon, sandstone, desert rocks, sand, red rocks, green rocks, blue rocks, there were so many I can’t even recall them all. She cried as she opened them all. I had wrapped each one in a tissue, and written where I found them. I have yet to give her a gift as grand as I did that day. It was quite literally a display that each and every single day I thought of her, and spent the effort to let her know I wanted to bring her happiness.

As I traveled throughout my life I’ve brought her more rocks, we all have. She has rocks from all over the world. We’ve all continued the tradition. Anytime my husband wants to give me something truly great he gives me a rock. He spent 20 minutes chipping out a piece of Borax in Death Valley in 115 degree heat so I could have it. He’s given me many gifts in the years we’ve been together, but that chunk of rock is precious to me. I can picture him with nothing but a small rock in his hand after hopping out of the car telling his father he needed a minute to grab me a piece of this. He knelt beside this massive chunk chipping at it so carefully as he melted in the heat. When the piece finally broke away he carried it back to the car with a triumphant look on his face. He handed it to me with a grin and a wink. I have it in our bedroom, I see it every single day when I wake, and remember that day. There are few people that would go to such lengths to get you a silly rock. He knew it was more than just a silly rock to me, and he choose to give me that moment, forever.

I now have rocks from all over the world. Sand from many shores sits in tiny glass and pewter containers. Each has a moment that is tied to it forever; each has a moment in which the giver has surrendered in its giving. I cannot imagine more precious a gift than that. Sometimes the greatest gifts of all are the simplest and yet the most complex all at the same time.