When I was a little girl, my grandpa was a fixture in my life. He lived about 15 minutes down the road, give or take, and could be with us on short notice. For that reason among others, he was there often enough. My mom’s side of the family had many gatherings bringing the children and grandchildren together. I grew up with my cousins as playmates.

Since I was at an awkward age distance to the cousins and I was less interested in rule-breaking, I often ended up seated with my grandpa listening to him talk about his most recent adventures, politics, and his varying opinions on everything (and he had an opinion on everything). I loved to hear him talk about his rock hunting. He was an amateur gemologist and had fun creating lapidary art. He made bolo ties and rings and a few different things here and there. Mostly, he enjoyed the hunt. He had a story about where he got each rock, where the gem was hidden within it, how he would cut it to get the most of the stone and the best presentation. Once he had cut and buffed each stone to a shine, he’d bring it around to show it off. Grandpa enjoyed the hunt so much that when he died, he had the only spare room in their tiny house filled with rocks; coffee canisters full of rough sapphires, opals, topaz. Some larger rocks were spread out on the table for later critical examination. We still have a number of those veined rocks in our possession and have never managed to have them cut. We keep them nearby and remember.