Crazy widow or just plain crazy?

Dan was what you could call a collector. A collector of random things. "old stuff" was one of his favorites. He also had 1,000's (yes 1,000's) or old glass bottles. He loved books and so did I. I estimate we had over 2,000 books, 10% of which I would say actually belonged to me. The rest were Dan's.  Dan also loved rocks.  Every time we would go anywhere at all he would pick up a rock, or two, or three. If we went somewhere like the beach we would come home with a bucket of rocks every single time. He passed his love of rocks to Baby girl of course. So ever since she was old enough to carry a bucket she would come home with her own full of rocks as well.

Now I appreciate a beautiful rock for sure, but I am much more particular about which ones are "keepers". Dan treated rocks the same way he treated people, every single one he picked up was a "keeper".

Our rocks fell into three categories: exceptionally nice rocks that went on display in the house. Not quite as nice rocks that filled the shelves in the garage. Plainer rocks that went in the rock garden around a tree in our yard.

It was some work to keep all these rocks and quite often they annoyed me because there were just so many of them. Then Dan died. Then we were forced to move.

Then as I was packing up our lives. Someone asked me about the rocks. "just leave them" they said. "its way too much work for you to pack them all up" I kinda shrugged and continued my packing. Then one day, well actually it took several days, ok maybe a week, maybe more. I started to pack the rocks. They were Dan's rocks and I couldn't leave them behind.  I pulled them ALL out of the yard and laid them out in my garage so they could dry out and be packed. Every one, they had been pushed into the dirt over the years and were wet and coverd in leaves and pine needles. Still I dug them all out. Several people told me it was unnessacery, that I didn't need to do all that work. That I didn't need all those, just a few would do. Still I packed them. The nieghbor lady asked what I was doing and I told her "crazy huh" I said. "doesn't sound crazy at all to me" she replied.

On moving day friends came over and helped us put boxes into the pod. Boxes and boxes and boxes of rocks. Some rocks too big to go in a box. Several people commented "wow you have a lot of rocks" "why are you keeping all these rocks" "what are you going to do with all these rocks" I just shrugged and said "there Dan's rocks, I can't leave them"

Last week we needed to find the washing machine in the pod so we could measure how big a space we needed for it. Of course it was at the very end. We took every thing out and then had to put it all back in again. My sister said "what about all these rocks? We can leave the rocks out can't we? It doesn't matter if they get wet, thier rocks" "Ya ok" I said with a heavy sigh "you can leave the rocks out"

Today I went and worked on the house. There's about a million things we need to do inside before we can move in. There's also a million things that need to be done outside after we move in, Things that can wait till spring. It was an uncommonly beautiful day for November and I thought "I'm going to put the rock garden out." So I did. It pretty much took all day. A day I could have spent getting the inside one step closer to moving in. It was hard work, landscaping takes tons of energy. Energy that even after 21 months I still don't have back. I tire easy, I didn't used to. I kept working, I was determined to get the rock garden done. Finely I put Dan's rocks where they will go. My sister was there and again teased me about having so many silly rocks.

It is silly, I know. There just rocks. There Dan's rocks though, he saw something special in every one of them. I put the rocks out and it was one step closer to feeling like our home. It's the first thing of Dan's I put in our new home so far. Funny, I thought it would be his ashes, nope it's his rocks. I looked at the finished garden and smiled. Dan would like it. Dan would like it that people shake their heads at it. "Who cares what they think" he would say "My rocks are cool"

I'm sure I will find more rocks as we unpack. I'm sure baby girl will bring home more rocks from our adventures, now they can go in the rock garden with Daddy's.  One of these days I will probably put some of Dan's ashes in the rock garden. Rocks were a part of Dan and a part of us. Who cares if packing and unpacking 20 boxes of rocks is crazy, it made me happy.

P.S. No thats not graffiti. That's Baby girls play house. Shes painting it herself.