Small treasures

This is a short story I wrote comparing a childhood memory with real life experiences on how we at times judge people on the outside and not on their true worth and value mainly their beauty of heart and soul.

Seems of late thinking comes easy, forgetting certain things comes hard.
Sifting through the memories of keeping and throwing away, not as easy as it seems.
I come back to some simple memories, of being a little girl.
I always loved to be outside summers were the special time.
Warmth of the country summer sun, sunflower’s and bumble bees
chasing butterflies and making mud-pies.

I loved to collect rocks, different sizes, shapes, and colors.
One day I decided to sit down on the spanning sidewalk
my mom and dad had built at our new house, with little help from
Kevin and I. Other than the mishaps we kept having stepping into
the wet cement until dad said ok, he took us and planted our feet then our
hands in the damp cement leaving an impression that may still be there today.

Then an idea came to me, I gathered all my rocks and set them down
on the sidewalk, went to the garage and hunted until I found one of dads
big heavy hammers. I took the hammer and sat back down on the sidewalk.
With two little hands I picked up the hammer and started to drop the steel head
on top of the rocks I had gathered. Soon they began to crack and chip .
I was wide eyed when I saw the crystals and shining sparkles in the middle
of some of the rocks. Soon I had a mini pile of cracked and chipped rocks.
I got my little bucket and filled it with water and dropped each chunk into it.

Kevin and I went to pick some bigger rocks, some that took us two hands to carry.
There was this monster rock that looked so awful on the outside but for some
reason I was drawn to it. It took many hits with the hammer but once it broke
ahhhhh it took my breath away. Inside there were sparkles and reds and oranges,
something I never would have imagined could have been inside such a big ugly
old heavy rock such as that. With glee I went skipping inside the house to get mom.
She too was so shocked and could not believe what a treasure was inside.
I shared bits of each rock with Kevin, including the newest find in our treasure hunt.

Since I have grown into a woman I often think of the rock. How often in life do
we look and only see one thing, making a conclusion in our mind, without looking deeper. Not really stopping to see all the beauty around us, beside us and most of all….
The beauty in each person we come to meet, pass on the street or have known our entire life. For one never knows what gem we would discover if we took a moment
with childlike wonder to stop and make a little crack to see what treasure really awaits
inside. I think I will get the hammer and crack a few rocks, giving myself a reminder.
How about you have you cracked a rock today?

Author's Note

Constructive help with this would be appreciated. I do make mistakes in grammar often.

Reviews

[a Messenger]

Nicely told childhood memory. The moral of the story is quite clear and true. Most, if not all, of us need to look at more than surface appearance. The true beauty of everyone is, like the rock's, hidden inside.
Very well done.