I've Never Been Withouth Someting to Love

Daisy enrolled in hospice when she was ninety years old. She had been widowed for six years and had been living in the nursing home for about a year. Daisy was born in Kentucky, married when she was fifteen and immediately moved to a farm in Pike County, Ohio with her new husband. Daisy worked as a nurse’s aid and her husband owned and operated a small sawmill.

As part of my initial assessment I asked Daisy, “Do you have any children?” When Daisy answered, “No”, I suspected she read my assumption, because she added, “But I’ve never been without something to love. I’ve always surrounded myself with something to love. I taught Sunday school for years and I baked muffins for the children every Sunday. The children called me “The Muffin Lady”. I loved those little children and they were always on my lap. One day a little boy reached up and pulled on my string of pearls and broke them. The pearls rolled across the floor. I cherished those pearls because my dead husband had bought them for me. One of the ladies asked me, ‘Aren’t you mad?’ I told her, ‘No!’ I don’t have my string of pearls anymore but those little children are my pearls.”

When Daisy moved into the nursing home she again surrounded herself with something to love. She passionately shared, “I like to encourage the old people here. Some of them are so depressed and just sit in their rooms. But I’ve gotten a lot of them out of their rooms and involved in activities.” The nursing home Social Worker applauded Daisy, “Daisy is one of our best therapists.” I feel the need to remind you that Daisy was ninety years old herself.

Daisy eventually became bedfast and was unable to go from room to room to encourage the other residents. So I asked, “Daisy is it hard for you now?” She deliberated for a few seconds and then replied, “No. I have a file of wonderful memories in my mind. And when I start feeling depressed I just pull out one and live it all over again.” A smile, an expression of deep satisfaction and contentment radiated from Daisy’s face.

Most people when they “…walk in the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4), look back and evaluate how they’ve spent their lives. They ask themselves, “Did I spend my life, my time my resources on what really matters?” “If I could go back and do it all over again what would I change?” The problem is we only get one time around and in the words of a contemporary country song, “It’s not a do over thing”. So it would behove us to live life on purpose, not casually or passively.

In my seventeen years as a hospice Social Worker I’ve met few patients who have said, “I wouldn’t have changed a thing”. That’s because we’re all imperfect and we all make mistakes. But as Willard, a former hospice patient and fellow pilgrim once told me, “The way I look at it, mistakes are only mistakes until we learn from them, then they become lessons. And life is full of lessons.” Man, isn’t that the truth! I don’t know about you but when I meet Jesus face-to-face I’m not going to ask for what I deserve. I’m going to ask for mercy.

We can’t go back and change the past, but we can choose how to spend our present and future. And I think we can learn a lesson or two from Daisy. Starting today, from this moment on, we can choose to surround ourselves with something to love. We can choose to spend our lives and our resources on those things which really matter, on matters of eternal significance.

I’ll leave you with a sobering line from an old “Dear Abby” column I read several years ago, “I’ve never heard anybody say on their death bed, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office’”

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)