Lost Fossils

When I was little, maybe 6 or so, I was taking a walk with my mother's younger sister out in the Illinois farmland where she lived at that time.  She found a tiny fossil in the gravel of the road that she gave me.  It looked pretty much like a 1-inch corn-on-the-cob, but made of rock.  It was perfect; no nicks or chips or anything.  I h ave no idea what it was.  Some kind of trilobite that wasn't flat? I kept it for years. I think the last time I saw it was in the metal box where I kept my coin collection.  I didn't have that many material possessions, but many of them were ruined or disappeared during the year I was overseas as an exchange student in high school.  I wish I knew what that little fossil was, and I wish I could find it.  If I knew what it was, maybe I could buy another one on eBay or something.

I also still mourn the loss of my "real" birth certificate--the one with my little feetprints on it.  My mother kept it for me, of course, and I saw it several times growing up, but items pertaining to her and to me were thrown out and destroyed by her husband after she died, with no chance for me to get to them.  I am grateful for a few childhood photos that were sneaked out to me by family members, however.  Yet I'd like to compare my feetprints to my son's.  And I'd just like to have the certificate, anyway!  Just knowing that it was there, saved for me, so precious to my memory, and someone knowingly tossed it away--it's maddening.  I get really infuriated if I allow myself to think about it too long.