The Tiffany Story

“A Mother’s Treasure is her daughter”.
-Catherine Pulsifer

The Grateful Stone^TM   was thought of and designed with Tiffany in mind. My daughter, Tiffany, was named after the famous jewelry store in New York back in the late sixties several years before the name became so popular. I wasn’t going to have a girl; I was sure it was going to be a boy and in that day we didn’t have the sonogram to show us; we just had to wait and see. Two weeks before her birth I saw an ad in a magazine for Tiffanys. I thought what a beautiful name it would be. Her father and I hadn’t really come up with a girl’s name. I remember thinking, oh, this must mean I am going to have a girl. Sure enough I did. She was the light of my life and we were especially close as we lived on our own for several years.

After divorcing from her father, Tiffany and I lived alone in several places…on the ocean in Corpus Christi, Texas, in Portland, Texas and for a time, in Houston, Texas. In Corpus, we raised vegetables in big wooden kegs on the porch adjacent to our apartment. She loved to climb down the rocks and go out onto the pier, which was part of the Beach Club next to where our small four-plex apartment was located. She caught her first fish with a pole, a string and a big safety pin. We spent a lot of time on the ocean. She loved to sing and read. We spent great holidays with my parents who adored Tiffany, their first grandchild.

When she was almost six, I married again…..a man with an adorable four year old daughter, Jill. Jill became Tiffany’s sister instantly, and we all moved to the jungles of Indonesia where we stayed for two and a half years. There the girls enjoyed lots of outdoor activities and their school classes with only a handful of students in each class. Because of visa issues, and with Tiffany’s braces, we had to make frequent monthly trips to Singapore. Here the girls enjoyed seeing the sights, staying in the Hilton Hotel on Orchard Road, and learning about the different cultures.

When Tiffany was eight, we moved to Kobe, Japan. It happened to be the coldest year they had experienced in 100 years; because we moved from the equator, we had to have winter clothes shipped to us. Our home was at the top of a mountain in Okamoto. Here was our fourth culture to learn about in Tiffany’s first 8 years of her young life. Tiffany loved Japan and would return after our three years in Jakarta, Indonesia to graduate from Canadian Academy in Kobe.

Our lives were exciting…traveling from culture to culture. Later in life, after being in four countries, Tiffany expressed her appreciation for the exposure to the various cultures and for helping her learn tolerance and understanding. She married Roland at 20 and had her first child, Anja, at 21. She continued her education little by little while helping support her husband’s educational pursuits. They had two more children, Sasha and Kaia. Tiffany graduated with her Bachelor of Science in 2004. She worked for Ft. Bend County ISD as a supervisor for the after-school program and was in the process of going for her Master’s Degree just a year after Kaia was born, which was also right before she died.

When Tiffany died at age 36 I was devastated. I wanted to do something to have her live on not only in our minds and hearts but in the minds and hearts of many. My Assistant and I had just thought of a business we wanted to start to manufacture a symbolic object out of natural stone for people to have with them to remind them to be grateful.

We have learned that if one is open minded and observant miracles happen all the time. I believe when one is on the right path, more of these seem to happen. Tiffany was my most blessed miracle and I will always hold her in my heart and mind…FOREVER!