When, for his week 75 Tuesday Photo Challenge, Frank asked us for pictures of stones, my mind immediately went to the collection in my yard.
They may not be extraordinarily pretty, but they hold extraordinary memories, and much like The Little Prince and his Rose, my stones are beautiful to me.
When my son was little, he used to bring these stones home. Every day when I would empty out his school uniform pockets, sure enough there would be a stone. “Why?” I would ask him, and with utmost seriousness he would reply, “I need them to build my big strong house.”
When a man is collecting one stone at a time to build his home, you don’t just throw it away. Nope, you pile it up in the backyard.
There was this one time he got really angry and threatened to “go far away from this house.” I asked him where he proposed to go. After a brief moment of thought he replied, “I can build my house with all my stones and stay there.”
He’s away at college now, and as I went behind to click a picture I thought to myself – Your stones are still waiting for you my little man. Come home soon.

“There might be millions of roses in the world, but you’re my only one, unique rose.”
“It’s the time that you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
– The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry