Store a GameObject to a variable on runtime.

Hello there.

I am currently in the process of writing an .obj importer with support for models that have multiple objects, for usage in runtime. Parsing the object works fine, and for convenience purposes, a parent is created for each model with the separate objects being stored as its children.

Since i am parsing all of the .obj files when the game is started, i don't want to use the meshes the moment they are successfully parsed, but instead i want to save them as a gameobject and then instantiate them whenever i need them.

So the logical thing to do would be (pseudocode):

 var importedMesh:GameObject;
 Instantiate parent;
 Instantiate all objects for the imported mesh;
 Set the parent for the instantiated objects to be the instantiated parent;
 importedMesh=instantiated parent;

Which theoretically would allow me to then Instantiate importedMesh to create a new clone of the generated object. The problem is that importedMesh=instantiated parent; stores the instantiated parent as a reference, which means that if i Destroy the instantiated parent, importedMesh will point to nothing. That is certainly a problem since, as i have already mentioned, i don't want to have the imported objects in the scene just yet.

So, is there a way to store a GameObject to a variable instead of storing a reference to it?

Edit: The point of this is to conveniently organize the imported models instead of storing meshes and having to instantiate each model's objects every time i need them. Everything would be much easier if i were able to instantiate them once, give them a parent and then only worry about instantiating the parent. I already know the former is a valid option.