Miracles Along the Way
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
-Albert Einstein
Miracle
Slice of Tiffany Stone sent to me by Rand Kluge, Utah. Appears as if Angel is in center.
A month after Tiffany passed I was in the office. Pat was at the computer and said, K.C., you arent going to believe this. I walked over to the computer and there on the screen was The Tiffany Stone. We found that it was a beautiful stone which had mixtures of colors. Sometimes yellows, rusts, grays, whites but always purple. We discovered it was opal fluorite (Tiffanys birthstone was opal) and though opal fluorite is mined all over the world, the Tiffany Stone actually comes only from Utah. The name Tiffany Stone has become popular around the globe and used in place of ice cream opal, purple opal and others. After finding this stone, I immediately got on the phone and talked to miners, people in business with stones in Utah, the company in Ohio who owned the Utah Beryllium mine and the man who named the stone Tiffany, Todd Harris. I also talked to a man, Rand Kluge, who was retired and was taking the Tiffany Stone and making beautiful jewelry. He sent me a slice of the Tiffany Stone which I keep by my desk always. It appears as if an angel is in the center of the stone. I have kept up with most of the people I have met along this journey and feel connected to them in a special way.
Miracle
Miracle two was finding out that the Beryllium mine was actually grinding the stones and making metals primarily used in the space program here in Houston.
Miracle
Napkin where I sketched design and Ancient Celtic design we found several weeks later
A month later Pat and I were in a coffee shop where I drew a second design on a napkin. Several weeks later I asked Pat to spend some time looking online to see if she could find any ancient symbols for gratitude. About 45 minutes later she said, K.C. you aren’t going to believe this (a mantra that kept repeating itself). I looked at what she had pulled up and to my absolute surprise saw an old Celtic symbol which looked so much like my design we couldn’t believe it. We knew we were being led on this journey.
Miracle
While working for the Census Bureau in 2010, I was led to our manufacturer. One of my teammates introduced me to Anup Pandey and his partner, Prashant Kulshrestha. She knew I was an interior designer and had offered to take me to the places in India where they manufactured the beautiful fabrics. She found out about Grateful StoneTM and told me about Anup. Anup resides in Austin, Texas and Prashant, his business partner, lives in Jaipur, India. Anup and Prashant are both engineers who now have their jewelry business, semiprecious.com. It was definitely fate that I decided to work for the Census and that I was led to Anup and Prashant.
Miracle
I knew I needed help. Pat was still working as a nurse but helping when she had time. I advertised for someone to work for me and interviewed quite a few people, many of whom would have worked quite well. I was in the process of choosing a candidate when I received another application. I arranged a meeting with her and upon our meeting knew instantly that she was the one. Kimberley Harris came aboard instantly. She had been praying to find the right job, one that would utilize her skills and one that she would feel good about. We both feel the Universe brought us together.
Miracle
While I had previously worked out all the kinks in the design and received the final prototypes, it was now time to proceed since I had the help I needed. But it wasn’t until I ran into a friend of mine at a local restaurant that we began to really move towards the launch of Grateful StoneTM. Mark Martinez had been my hairdresser off and on over an eight-year period. He talked to me one evening about how the current generation of young people seem to not understand how important it is to be grateful for everything in their lives. He asked me if I would speak about Grateful StoneTM at his November staff meeting and he purchased pieces to give to each of his employees. I was so thrilled! This would be our first official Grateful GatheringTM. Mark had given us the spark to really get our act together. He had, without me telling him, understood the meaning of the Grateful StoneTM.
