I don't know exactly when I decided. Or whether I decided at all. I just got in the car one morning and drove. Toward the coast. Without thinking. As if my body knew what it needed before I did.

Family had been around for three weeks. Everyone wanted to help. But nobody understood that I needed to be alone for a moment.

My mother was gone.

I had spent three weeks doing everything right. Calling who I needed to call. Saying what I was supposed to say. Smiling when it was time to smile. I was good at that.

What I wasn't so good at was staying still.

This is not a gentle coast. Anyone who has seen it knows that. It is raw, cold, and it doesn't care about you. The waves break against the dark rocks whether you are there or not. It doesn't stop for you.

That is why I went there.

I needed something that wouldn't stop for me.

I walked along the shore for hours. It was the first time in weeks I was completely alone. A strong wind was blowing. The sand was dark and wet. The rocks rose around me on both sides.

At some point I crouched down and picked up a stone. I don't know why. It was smooth, grey, and fit perfectly in my hand. I didn't let go of it.

I picked up more. And more.

When I got back to the car my pockets were full.

That same evening I sat at the same kitchen table where she used to sit. I just looked at the stones in front of me. And then I started making something from them.

For her. Even though she was no longer here.

I never got to tell her while she was alive. That I really saw her. That I knew everything she had done for us. That she always put herself last. That I felt a gratitude I never knew how to say out loud.

The piece I made that evening was my way of telling her.

Too late. But I told her.

Since then I have designed hundreds of pieces. For mothers, daughters and women carrying something they don't know how to express. And for women who simply need to feel that they are enough.

Every time I find a stone on the coast I think of her.

And every time I place a finished piece on the old wooden table it is still for her.

Even though she is no longer here.

— Narelle