I don't know exactly when I decided. Or whether I decided at all. I simply 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 no one understood that I needed to be alone for a moment.

My mother was gone.

For three weeks I had done everything right. Called who I needed to call. Said what I was supposed to say. Smiled when I was supposed to smile. I was good at that.

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

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

At some point I crouched down and picked up a stone. I don't know why. It was smooth and gray 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 there.

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 — for my father, for us, for the family. 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 set a finished piece down on the old wooden table it is still for her.

Even though she is no longer here.

— Susan

If any of this stirs something in you... you know where to find me.