Stones: “Keep One With You and Think of Me”
My Dad gave me a stone that he had polished 20 years ago, 5 years before he died.
During his all-too-short retirement years, he became interested in polishing stones as a hobby. This stone has gone and still goes with me everywhere and has been with me through everything. It’s guided me across countries, continents, experiences, joy, sorrow, illness, marriage, separation, health, disability, loneliness, elation, and experiencing true and pure love.
Anyone who gets to know me on an intimate friendship or love level knows what this stone represents to me.
I regularly just get this beautiful gift from my Dad because feeling the smoothness of its ridges brings me great comfort, and I often hold it during big life decisions when I wonder, "What would my Dad tell me to do?"
This Christmas, my Mom published an essay my Dad had written about the joy he found in polishing stones, and she had it mounted and gave it to us three Fischer girls.
I hadn't read it in 20 years, a visual memory of the depth of my Dad's spiritual soul. It was also a very important and timely reminder that my Dad valued and had a deep interest in Celtic spirituality, which preceded the Catholic religion I’d been raised in that I’d been recently feeling a lot of resentment towards.
In “Stones,” he wrote about the process of reflecting on the stone’s origin, its history, what it holds, and the sense of wonder that he experienced as he polishes each stone. Of how something can start off rigid and rough and become smooth and reflective. Things I often feel as I come across various parts of nature that surround me as a settler on the Snuneymuxw lands on Vancouver Island.
I cried when I read the paragraph about the comfort he feels when running his fingers across their smooth ridges. It's like he knew that one day, his baby girl would rely on the stones for her own comfort too.
My mom included a snippet of his handwriting: "Keep one with you and think of me." It’s almost like he knew we'd want to keep his influence around beyond his earthy form.
My Dad feelings and grief have been really strong lately having both been young and experienced some traumatizing things during his death and realizing 15 years into it that I am still in a space of grief. Something I’ll work through. This meaningful gift is an important step in that.
My Dad is with me forever, in his stones, in my heart, and in my soul. Thank you, Mom, for knowing exactly what my soul needed at this part of my life. And thank you, Dad, for leaving parts of you with us. I'll treasure you, and your stones, forever.
Anne-Marie E. Fischer, BA (Hons), M.Ed., blends her passion for the written word with her vocation to create a better world through effective communications, education, and Community Based Research (CBR).
Words for Impact is the culmination of Anne-Marie’s passions, talents, training, experience, and education. This unique company offers grant and proposal writing, research studies, research reports, impact reports, content development, brand development, communications consulting, biography/autobiography (ghost)writing, education and training materials, curriculum development, podcast script writing, journalistic articles, press releases, developmental editing, in-line editing, and fact-checking.
Words for Impact has a specific interest in serving nonprofits, not-for-profits, community organizations, Indigenous organizations, highly-regulated sectors, individuals & entrepreneurs, podcast hosts, and innovative industries.
Learn more about Words for Impact’s services here and past Impact Projects that Anne-Marie has been involved in here. Dedicated to helping you find the right words for the things that matter.
