A little girl found a stone on the bank of the river just down from her house.
It fit perfectly in her palm.
One side was grey. The other side looked like two parts, darker brown separated from a grey section by a jagged line. It reminded her of what she learned in science class about shadows changing the appearance of the moon.
Crescent moon profile
For years, she carried it in her pocket. It went to school, on camping trips, and even sat beside her bed at night.
Whenever she was daydreaming, she rubbed her thumb across the surface of her ‘pocket moon.’
Then one summer, while skipping stones with friends, she reached into her pocket without thinking.
A moment later, she watched her favorite stone skip once, twice, three times across the water and disappear.
Her breath froze. She stood there in shock. The sudden loss zapped her like the time she touched the electric fence at Fred's horse pasture.
The creek carried on as if nothing had happened. The clouds in the sky floated by.
For weeks, she returned to the water and searched.
She walked the banks. She peered into clear pools. She returned after rainstorms.
But the stone was not for her to find.
Eventually, she stopped looking.
But she didn't forget.
Time passed.
She moved away, and occasionally remembered the stone with the crescent moon.
Then one autumn afternoon, she returned home to visit friends. She took a walk down to the water's edge.
The water was lower than usual.
As she walked, staring at the ground, something caught her eye.
There, among dozens of ordinary rocks, sat a smooth grey stone that looked remarkably like her pocket moon.
Could it be her pocket moon?
She gasped.
"No way!"
She bent down and picked it up.
The stone fit perfectly in her palm. It felt familiar. It looked similar.
Of course, there was no way to know if it was truly the same stone.
The water wasn't talking.
The stone wasn't telling.
As she turned it over in her hand, she realized something curious.
Whether it was the same stone or not, did not matter.
She would value this stone as much as she valued the other one. And in the valuing of it, her inner flame grew larger.
She had found what she was looking for.
It had simply taken all these years to realize she had it with her the whole time.