When he was young, my son loved to go for walks, using his keen little-boy eyes to scout for treasures.  What parent hasn’t experienced the simultaneous anticipation and apprehension of unloading a little fellow’s pockets on laundry day?  After a particularly fortuitous walk, he presented me with a stone.  He didn’t really say anything, but he didn’t need to. The message was the stone itself; it was shaped like a heart.

 The heart shaped stone has lived on my kitchen windowsill ever since, a reminder of feelings that are apparent even when not spoken.  Love lives in this house.  Over the years, the heart shaped stone has shared its space on the windowsill with other serendipitous objects: heart shaped jelly beans, toy hearts, flower petals that looked like valentines. Currently, the beloved stone rests next to a heart shaped keepsake I purchased in from a shop in Germany’s Mosel wine region, and a nondescript stone I hurriedly picked up and pocketed moments before boarding a plane out of Venice, Italy. While those objects might have more glamorous origins, neither has a back story as special as the one placed, many years ago, into my hand by the hand of my child. Neither is as awesome or precious as my heart shaped stone.

I picked up the heart shaped stone today while clearing away some other kitchen clutter.  I held it in my hand and smiled.  Once evident of a little boy’s love for Mommy, it continues to remind me to look for the love that’s all around; to look for love in unexpected places.  The heart shaped stone will always reside on my windowsill.  And when I’m gone, I want it to be passed along so its message abides.

~ All you need is love.

~ And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

~ Brief is life, but love is long.

~ For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son.

~ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~ Love is Love is Love