I came home from Greece with a bag full of rocks.

I brought back more than I should have, but considering the giant pile I'd amassed before we left, far fewer than I wanted.

I measured the time we were there by my rock collection, which grew, slowly some days and rapidly others.

When my kids grew tired of the beach, or when they seemed to be angling for me to hand over my phone so they could play games or watch videos, I'd ask them to come hunt for rocks.

Sometimes, we searched for sea glass to give to their grandmother.

"Which color is the most rare?" my son asked and, with an insistence common in youthful questioning, would not allow me to demur.

He wanted me to look up the definitive answer on my phone, but I took the old-fashioned route of supreme parental confidence.

"Probably purple," I said, thinking that I hadn't seen many purple glass bottles in my days.

On other hunts, I asked the kids to find me a particular kind of stone — "as white and smooth as an egg," I once requested.

They compared the white rocks as they found them, seeking the one that would match my description the best.

Which was the smoothest? The most egg-like in shape? The most opaque?

And then there were the rocks we added to the collection because of their uniqueness. My son chose one because it looked like a heart. Another because it reminded him of Pac-Man. Our younger son picked one that was just the right shade of blue, his favorite color.

Some days we left the beach with bags and buckets heavy with rocks, ones they and I couldn't bear to leave behind.

Looking for the stones, I was reminded of similar searches when I was a child, on some of the same beaches I was now combing as an adult.

I remember finding pebbles — some a shocking green, others swirled with pink and white — and being sad to see them once they were out of the water, their colors faded to variants of dull gray.

I tried rubbing them with olive oil to see if that would return their vibrancy, but it somehow didn't work. They were different once removed from the salty sea.

It was a challenge to determine which rocks I'd bring back from our vacation. I reluctantly put some of them back, in garden beds full of other rocks and back on the pebbled shore, but I would have brought them all if I could.

The remainder I divvied up. Some for both of my sons, some for me, most of the sea glass to their grandmother. (We saved one special piece for each of us.)

The boys' rocks went into their treasure chest, cigar boxes that hold precious trinkets like seashells, feathers and particularly beautiful cupcake toppers.

Mine, about a dozen of the smallest and smoothest of our selection, now sit on my desk. They're waiting for just the right dish to hold them, a dish that's pretty but not so pretty that it distracts.

I touch them often, picking them up to feel their smoothness, discovering new cracks and spots that I'd missed before.

They're mostly whites, pastel grays and pinks, but there's one that stands out. It looks like a large jellybean, sheer white speckled with brick red. When we first found it, the 4-year-old popped it in his mouth. He couldn't help himself.

"I wanted to see how it tasted," he said.

It does look delicious.

I tell myself it's silly to think these are rare and valuable gems, but I can't stop the thought from popping up.

They're just pebbles, I say.

Their value, I'm certain, is only in my mind.

But that's valuable enough.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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