Mother gains strength from son’s rocks

   When Aaron Kincaid was growing up, he loved to go rock hunting with his mother and his brother Marc. It was a bonding experience for the three of them, since his mother Marcia, an amateur geologist and paleontologist, had been collecting rocks since she was a child.

   “My dad was a metallurgical engineer. He traveled all over the world and brought me rocks from everywhere he traveled. I was always so thrilled to get new rocks,” said Marcia.

   Drawing on her extensive background in geology, Marcia took her sons all around the country to study the wonders of nature, especially rocks.

   “When Aaron was six and Marc was three, we’d go out with backpacks, water and picks, wearing our snake shoes and look for rocks,” said Marcia.

   While traveling in the Badlands of South Dakota, because of Marcia’s membership in the Southeastern Paleontology Association, Aaron and his brother had special permission to dig wooly rhino teeth and bones on an Indian reservation, something the general public never gets to do.

   When Aaron enlisted in the Army in 2005, all his special rocks were tucked away in the attic. When Aaron was killed in action in Iraq last September, Marcia drew her strength from Aaron’s rocks. 

   She had already started a rock wall in her backyard garden, enhanced with a few of the rocks that she and her sons had collected over the years. 

   “Gardens are my way of healing,” said Marcia. It seemed only natural that she should memorialize her son with rocks in her garden.

   Soon word got out through the community about Aaron’s rock garden and the next thing Marcia knew, news about her rock collection was on the Internet. People were sending her rocks from all over the world. She hoped to have a rock from every state by April 1, Aaron’s birthday, the day she planned to dedicate Aaron’s garden.

   “It really snowballed,” Marcia said. “The American people really came through. I was receiving five or six boxes a day. People wrote me notes about the origins of the rocks. They were pouring out life stories to me.”

   Then Marcia remembered all of Aaron’s rocks in the attic. 

   “Those were his treasures. I felt he would have wanted his rocks there to support his fallen brothers and sisters. So I placed them in the garden, too.”

   As the dedication ceremony drew near, the only state not represented was North Dakota. Days before the event that rock arrived. A Lutheran Church had a cross made of rocks. “They gave up a portion of their cross. What love and compassion for their fellow man,” said Marcia.

   As Marcia works in Aaron’s garden, she remembers how he used to lift heavy rocks for her. Now, for Marcia, the rocks lift up Aaron.

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