Dawn's Notes
A Surprise Inside - April 2025
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
With a look of excitement in her eyes, my sister Hope handed me an almost-round object. It was about three inches across, rough to the touch, with gouges and chips on its dark-grey surface. The gouges were a lighter grey color, and it was held together with a wide rubber band.
The spherical object was heavier than I had expected, and I had an idea what it might be since my sister and her husband had been to Iowa for a “dig.” Wearing their rubber boots, they had slogged up and down hills in the mud as they searched for buried treasures.
Hope said, “Open it,” and on closer examination I found that my “rock” had been cracked into two pieces which fit together almost seamlessly. I took off the rubber band, pulled the “rock” apart, and held the two pieces in my hands. The inside of the object was very different from the rough, ugly rock-like exterior.
The partially hollow middle was lined with jagged, sparkly crystals. Some of the crystals where tiny, some were large. Some were white, some light grey, and some darker grey. The crystals were irregular, with larger clumps and smaller clumps—all beautiful, shimmering, and sparkling in the sunlight!
I was looking at the inside of a geode, ugly on the outside and beautiful on the inside—a treasure from my sister Hope.
It takes thousands of years for a geode to form and usually requires volcanic activity, sedimentary soil, hot water, and minerals. Various minerals help determine the final colors inside the geodes.
But first there must be a hollow bubble which hardens into an empty cavity. Then, over time, hot water seeps into the cavity carrying minerals which form the beautiful crystals inside.
Pressure, heat, and cataclysmic activity are needed for the formation of geodes—the beginning of beautiful geodes. Even though most crystals inside geodes are quartz, some are multi-colored barite, pyrite, dolomite, amethyst, and jasper, a delight for treasure hunters!
Perhaps the insides of geodes are like people with rough-looking and tough-acting exteriors, people who have experienced some difficult situations in life, whose outward beauty is not apparent.
The pressures of life may have helped mold them, filling their hollow “cavities” with either bitterness or goodness. Illnesses, relationship problems, and deaths may gouge us and roughen us up, molding us into someone different than we would like to be. But there is still usually something beautiful inside each of us!
The hurt from losing someone we loved can cut deep into our hearts, causing us to build imaginary “walls” to protect ourselves from future hurts. When we are hurting, it may be difficult to realize that we have the opportunity to grow, to learn, as a result of our pressures and hurts.
It is hard to realize that our empty “cavities,” our lives, may someday, like the geode, be filled with something beautiful.
So after a loss, hang on during the uncertain times. Take care of yourself physically, spiritually, and emotionally while your heart heals. And don’t give up hope that there is something good, something beautiful in the making!
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator