Hey everyone, I’ve been thinking about whether to share this for a while now. It feels like a confessional, a pouring out of something buried deep within me. I hope by putting it out here, it becomes a little easier to carry.
A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out my parents’ attic. They’re downsizing, and I volunteered to help sort through years of accumulated stuff. It was the usual attic fare—dusty boxes, faded photo albums, and crumbling keepsakes that told the story of our family. But there was one small, seemingly insignificant object that changed everything for me.
I found it in a shoebox labeled “Misc.”—a tiny, carefully painted stone. It was smooth and round, fitting perfectly in my palm, painted with bright blue swirls and little yellow stars. It immediately took me back to a summer at the lake house when I was about ten. I had painted that stone one lazy afternoon with my mother. I remember how she had insisted we keep it as a memory of our little ‘art project’.
It all seemed innocent enough, a simple reminder of a happy moment. But holding it after so many years, I was struck by a wave of emotion so strong it took my breath away. I sat down on the attic floor, clutching the stone, as a flood of memories came back.
I remembered that summer distinctly because it was the last time all of us were together before everything changed—before my parents’ divorce. At that age, I hadn’t fully understood why my father left, why my mother cried those nights, or why things could never go back to how they were.
After the divorce, I buried a lot of those feelings. I became the ‘strong’ one, the one who didn’t need to talk about emotions. But the truth is, I never understood what caused the fracture in our family.
Holding that stone, I decided to ask my mother what had happened back then. It wasn’t an easy conversation to broach. We sat down at her kitchen table, and I placed the stone between us. She picked it up, smiling at the memory, her fingers tracing the painted swirls.
“I remember this,” she said, her voice filled with nostalgia. “You were so proud of it.”
I took a deep breath and asked, “Mom, why did Dad leave?”
Her face changed, like a shadow had passed over it. She looked at me, really looked at me, perhaps seeing the child who had been left with so many unanswered questions. Then she spoke, softly and with a sincerity that broke my heart.
“It wasn’t just one thing, sweetheart. Your father and I, we grew apart. We were young, and we didn’t know how to hold each other through the storms.”
She paused, her fingers still caressing the stone. “It was nobody’s fault. Sometimes love changes, and people change too. We both thought it was best for you and your brother… to not see us unhappy.”
I felt something shift inside me, like the stone I held was absorbing all the confusion and hurt I had carried for years. Hearing her words, plain and honest, I realized I had always looked for someone to blame—thinking it would make things easier.
But life is messy, isn’t it? It never fits neatly into blame and reason.
I asked her if she was okay now. She smiled, a little teary-eyed, and said she was. That she had found peace in her life, in us kids, in herself.
That conversation, as simple as it was, changed something fundamental in me. I’ve carried this incomplete story for so long, and now, knowing the truth, I feel lighter. The understanding that life isn’t always about clear reasons has allowed me to let go of the bitterness I didn’t even know I harbored.
I put the stone on my mantle now. It’s become a symbol of that change, of understanding and accepting the imperfections and unpredictability of life. I now see it not just as a piece of my past, but as a reminder to embrace change and the beauty it can bring.
Thanks for listening. Maybe this resonates with some of you. I guess what I’m saying is, if you’ve got something you’re holding onto, it might be worth asking about the truth. It can be liberating.