When my daughter was in preschool, in an effort to leave our house more and meet people, we joined a painted rock group on Facebook. We would hide, find and paint kindness rocks and spread them out around our community.
My daughter, who was four at the time, was absolutely obsessed with finding them. It wasn’t even about the rock or the message, she loved the chase. She’d beg me every week, to take her rock hunting. We live in the Pacific Northwest, so typically during the school year the weather is cold, damp and rainy.
After about two solid weeks of dark rain, she starts begging me to take her to the pond. The pond is a small park with walking trails, ducks, and trees. It’s a painted rock paradise as most people hide their painted creations there. I try to tell her that in this rain, no one is hiding rocks but she doesn’t seem to care. Cabin fever has definitely set in so we grab our umbrellas, put our rain boots on and head out.
I’m amazed she isn’t complaining as we slog through the mud and duck under soaking wet branches. To my amazement, she finds a painted rock! I assume it was luck, a rock that was over looked from weeks earlier. Then she finds another one. She starts laughing in excitement and sticks her head through the wet branches of a small fir tree. She pulls out yet another one! I suppose, there are rock painters out there as crazy as we are.
She starts running and skipping through the park, finding rocks left and right. My pockets are full and I’m about ready to call it a day. We normally only keep a couple of our favorite ones and then re-hide the rest for others to find. She disappears in the brush and I rush after her. I start calling for her and I hear her little voice down at the waters edge.
“Honey, come back. I don’t want you down there by the water!” I call out to her.
“I need help getting up.” She calls back.
I pull back the wet brush, to see she has scrambled down a small ledge of hard packed earth and rocks. She is kneeling beside the water, observing a handsome mallard duck.
“I’ll come and get you.” I tell her.
I take one step down the embankment, feel my foot slide unevenly on the slick mud and I lose my balance. Down I go, landing hard on my butt at an odd angle. I cry out in pain as this sickening, numbing pain spreads throughout my lower back and down my legs. My daughter rushes over to me and as I try to get up, a seizing pain grips my lower back and buttocks. She attempts to pull me up but it only makes me groan in pain. In horror, I realize that I’ve broken my tailbone!
I know I’m in trouble. We are in the mud, concealed by bushes, weighed down by pockets full of painted rocks and I’m unable to move. I decide to give it a few minutes and then I’m calling an ambulance. I wait out the pain and somehow manage to crawl my way up. My daughter sensing that we are in the grips of an emergency, makes it out on her own.
Hunched over, I’m able to walk and we gingerly make our way back down the trail. I reach into my pockets and start pulling out rocks, dropping them along the trail as we go. My daughter quickly scoops up the ones she wants to keep. We are almost there. I can see the car up ahead and then I hear my name being called. I turn around, plastering on a fake smile as I’m greeted by another fellow rock painter. I don’t want to be a big baby in front of her or start complaining about my injury, so I hold a full conversation with her, biting back the waves of pain before we finally part ways.
We make it to the car and I somehow manage to strap my daughter into her car seat. I take a deep breath and lower myself into the driver seat only to find myself sick to my stomach again. I feel myself start to hyperventilate. I look down at my phone, knowing I should have asked that fellow rock painter for help. I’m not going to be able to drive! I’m going to have to call an ambulance! I breathe in and out until the pain subsides. Leaning over my steering wheel, we barely make it home.
I end up on the couch, propped up with pillows, a heating pad covering my butt and a tailbone injury that takes close to six months to heal. At the very least, we have some very pretty painted rocks to remember the occasion!
