Daniel Tompkins visits the neighborhood he grew up in, then walks to his old junior high school. As he did many years ago, he finds a stone on the sidewalk and kicks it down the road. What was the fascination with kicking stones? He muses on the reasons for this as he relives the memories. They were difficult times in the weeks after his mother's death. As he has done for years, he wonders how he survived that time, with no counseling."Kicking Stones", a short story, is written to explore ways and means of a teenager dealing with the death of a parent. It is the third in a series, following "Mom's Letter" and "Too Old To Play".