Let me tell you about, penguins, rocks and Walden Pond.

I grew up barely a dozen miles from the place Henry David Thoreau made famous by building a cabin that would fit into our bedroom with a bit of space left over and living there for about a year. Today, it is a state park largely because of Thoreau’s residency.

Frankly, Doonesbury got it right when he caricatured it back in the 1970s with Walden Puddle–a place out in the backyard where Zonker used to sit between big games trying to figure out the answer to life, the universe and everything in the days before Douglas Adams gave us 42. The place is really very small for the amount of attention it gets. The railroad tracks still run by within shouting distance of the site of Thoreau’s cabin and on a spring or summer day there are still those who fish along its banks.

I took

Jane there on one of our first dates. We

picked up two smooth stones as we walked to the far end of the pond where Thoreau’s cabin once stood. Today there is a cairn that pilgrims from all over the world bring stones to every year. We added ours to the pile that I always think should be so much higher than it is. My stone joined the others I had placed there over the years. For Jane, it was her first, and I think she felt a little foolish about it. It became one of our little rituals, however. There are a number of stones from each of us there now.

One time, before we got married, we were on our way back from the cairn when we started talking about penguins. One particular type of penguin has an almost human ritual: the male brings his intended bride a rock. If she accepts it, they become engaged. He then brings her more rocks from which she builds their nest.

I had already asked Jane to marry me and she had said yes some months before. But now I bent down and picked up a small stone and handed it to her. She smiled, put it in her pocket, and we continued to walk.

She kept that stone. Sometimes I think she treasured it more than her engagement ring. She kept it on her desk in our home. It is still there–along with some others I gave her over the years. From those stones we built our life together. They were a constant reminder to us both that we were building something bigger than ourselves–and something more enduring.

Each time I visit her grave I put three stones at its base. Two represent our souls. The third represents the one body we now have between us. Together, they remind me that we still have work to do in this world–and of the wordless promise we made each other on the shores of Walden Pond.