Rocks in the Frig...

I have been reminiscing lately, thinking back when kids were much younger and when life in some ways felt harder just by the nature of parenthood.

I remember years ago -- about 18 or so years ago -- I had a rock stuck on the inside of my refrigerator. Open the door, look down and to the right and there was a small rock wedged in the track of the bottom shelf.

Why was it there?

Back in the day my little boys (Tim, Andrew and Jordan) believed that if you put rocks in the refrigerator to get cold that they had special powers. The cold made them magical. So they would put rocks in the butter door of the frig to get them cold. One day a rock fell out of from the butter door and got lodged in the track of the bottom shelf and it lived there for many years.

I remember the day that I finally decided that I wouldn't nag them about the rocks. With my change of heart it actually made me smile when I saw them.

I also remember that many years after they stopped putting rocks in the frig that one rock remained ....the one on the right, stuck in the track. It was jammed in there and wouldn't come out....until the day I decided that I was going to pry it out.

I worked hard to get that rock out of there. It took a little while but I finally muscled it out of the home it had known for many years. Once it was out I held it carefully in my hand. As I looked at that rock I had a twinge of regret.

Why had I pried that rock out of there? What had I done?

I suddenly realized that I didn't want the rock out of the frig. I realized I was going to miss seeing that rock. It was part of our family. Each time I opened that frig and saw that rock stuck in there I recalled my little boys and the magic powers the cold gave to their rocks and I smiled. With the rock gone from its appointed place I couldn't conger up the memory as quick as opening up the door of the frig and peering in.

It was then I knew that the rock had to go back to where I had taken it from. So I carefully took that rock and lovingly wedged it right back in the very place I had pried it from. Once it was in there I gave it extra pushes to be sure it was in there good and snug.

Seeing that rock back in it's place made me happy. And that rock stayed in that place until just a few years ago when the frig stopped working and we had to replace it with a new one. I couldn't let the old frig go without removing, for the last time, that rock that had been there for about 18 years. I pried the rock out and I kept that rock.

The rock used to live in my jewelry box as a cherished memory of when my boys were little and believed in magic powers. The funny thing is that the rock is no longer there. I think other little hands got in there and took the rock as part of their own make believe but that is okay. I don't need the actual rock to remind me of my boys or the magic they believed their rocks had in the cold.

I believe in magic...the magic of beautiful memories.

*The rocks in this picture were rocks recently found under the seat in our van...put there not by our boys, but by the two sisters of those boys! It could be genetic. :)