When I was thirteen, a life-changing incident occurred one morning when I was walking

to the school bus stop. I was strolling past the houses of the suburban neighborhood that I

lived in when I noticed a little blue stone in the grass. Something about it intrigued me. I

have always been a lover of rocks, gems, minerals, and things of that nature. That alone was

enough to get my attention. But that dazzling color! It was like the teal blue shade of a

peacock's feather or the color of the waters of Cancun. The stone was only about two-thirds

of an inch long, but there it sat in the grass in between the pavement and the street,

practically begging me in its own silent way to pick it up and give it a closer look. But I was

in a hurry to catch the bus, so I left it there.

     During the ride to school, I wondered where that lovely stone came from. It almost

looked like a piece of gravel from an aquarium, but I have never seen gravel that beautiful.

Was it an exotic pet rock that some unfortunate kid in the neighborhood lost? I had always

thought that pet rocks came in neutral hues of tans and browns. Perhaps this one had been

dyed?

     No, that color had to be natural. Maybe it was a gemstone in its raw, unpolished form--

maybe not a sapphire but an agate. It looked like a treasured object that someone had

purchased in a petite, out of the way place that sold rare oddities and antiques. How sorry I

felt for the person who lost it! I wondered how much he paid for it and where he had

displayed it in his home. Maybe it sat on its own regal stand in a mahogany curio cabinet in

the living room or bedroom. I wondered how long that poor person had been wandering the

streets, looking for the object that had completed his collection so perfectly and brought him

hours of viewing pleasure.

     I thought about the stone again as I strode the school halls from one class to the next,

and then it crossed my mind again during my lunch hour. I knew it couldn't have been a

worry stone, because worry stones are smooth and the blue stone had crevices in it. Besides,

it looked much too unique to be a worry stone. That magnificent color gave it a magical aura.

I could almost picture it being the stone of a sorcerer or wizard, which made me wonder

whether it glowed in the dark.

     Maybe the stone had been handed down from one generation to the next? Yes, that was

it--an heirloom. And maybe each generation intended to have it made into a piece of jewelry,

but they kept it safely hidden in a drawer and never got around to it. It just wasn't important

enough to them. But how could that be?

     I jotted down a reminder in my spiral ring notebook: "Pick up little blue stone on the way

home from school." I wanted to keep it and admire it every day before I went to school and

after I came home. Or maybe I would try to find its owner by putting an ad in the paper.

Maybe it seemed silly to go through all of that effort for a seemingly insignificant stone. But

to me, it was not so insignificant. For all I knew, it could have been worth a great amount of

money. And even if it wasn't, it still held a mystical value that could not be measured in

dollars and cents. After all, look at what it had done for me. It turned my ordinary school day

into a wondrous day that was filled with questions that started with "What if?" and "Could it

be?"

     That stone was downright extraordinary.

     Going home that day, I stepped off the bus with an eagerness that I think most people

rarely ever feel. I couldn't wait to pick up the stone and take home that gorgeous piece of

heaven, or at least the closest thing to heaven that I had ever known. But when I reached

the patch of grass where I had found it, the stone was gone. I looked all around the grass

and pavement as my heart sank all the way down to my toes. Maybe someone walked by

there and accidentally kicked it away somewhere nearby?

     No. I looked over the entire expanse of the street and could not find it.

     I like to think that its owner found it. If anything else happened, then I would not be able

to forgive myself. Why didn't I grab it and put it in my pants pocket on my way to the bus

stop that morning? I suppose I was too young to realize that other people in the world, even

other people in my neighborhood, had the same taste that I had. Maybe the stone was not

as "seemingly insignificant" in other people's minds as I had imagined it was.

     So how did that incident change my life, you might ask? Well, it made me realize just

how evil procrastination really is, and how it can bite you in the butt if you don't take control

of a situation and "strike while the iron is hot." Till this day, I wonder what ever happened to

that little blue stone. Who is its lucky owner now? Who is the person whose life changed for

the better because of it?