Grief

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Saying Goodbye
By: Reverend Janet M. Snelling

Unknown Poet and Title

Look to this day!
It is life, the whole of all life.
In its brief course lies all the realities of existence:
The bliss of growth.
The glory of action.
The splendor of achievement.
Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow only a vision.
Today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream.
Tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore to this day!
It is the salutation to your future.


If you have to ask what this poem has to do with saying goodbye, read it again.
I have a friend whose mother passed away over a dozen years ago. She grieves for her mother often, I don’t believe a single day goes by that she doesn’t regret the loss of that wonderful woman. The lady was someone that I did not know. I have never heard anything but good about her. She was hard working, family oriented and a true Christian.

The lady suffered greatly from cancer for quite some time.

During this time of suffering, the my friend’s father was not a particularly kind or considerate person. He has changed in the past several years and has made some efforts to repair his relationships with his children. But my friend still holds a grudge.

Some years ago, I met a man by knocking him down when I opened the door to exit a store. I had never seen him before. About a week later I saw him on the side of the road, with his disabled vehicle and elderly father. It was an extremely hot day. I picked them up. Drove the father to their home and then carried the man to a repair shop where he made arrangements for his automobile. I completed my chores and stopped by the garage to check on the progress of the repairs. The vehicle was not going to be ready until the following day. I took the man home, stopping at my home on the way to put some groceries in the refrigerator.

The following afternoon the man appeared at my home with his newly repaired vehicle and a nice bunch of cut flowers. I immediately put the flowers into a vase with water. I had a nice warm fuzzy feeling every time I looked at them. After some time they began to wither and dry, the petals became darker and I threw them out. I occasionally thought of them and the memory of how I felt when they were received. I never looked at them or remembered them with regret for having thrown the flowers away.

I do not grieve for flowers from long ago. I never once looked at that bunch of flowers and thought of flowers from the past. I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I remember receiving them and placing them into that vase. It is a fact that being presented with flowers is not a normal occurrence in my life. In many ways, those truly happy, content and memorable moments of most of our lives are few and far between as well.

Live well, be happy, for today is the day that the Lord has given unto you. REJOICE, and be glad in it. We are given this gift from the Lord. Unlike that beautiful bunch of cut flowers I so enjoyed, we look past each of these gifts to the woos and regrets of past gifts wasted or badly spent. We feel not the joy that those gifts brought us but the regret that they are past us.

We must instead strive to train ourselves to think of each new day as that bunch of cut flowers. When you first receive them you do all that you can to preserve them and enjoy them each time you glance at them. As the gift of that day begins to wither and darken, throw them out in preparation for the gift of God‘s next miracle, tomorrow.

I do not suggest that you forget yesterday. I suggest that you revel in having had and enjoyed that yesterday. If today brings you pain, there will be parts of that pain that will directly connect to some memory of happiness, or love or simple simplicity. By concentrating on that past joy we begin to heal the pain of today.

My friend cannot focus on the fact that her mother is no longer in pain. She cannot be glad in the gift of each new day. She knows that her mother is happy and is with her Lord and Savior but she selfishly yearns and wastes today’s flowers by wanting those dried and withered flowers of yesterday.

Unlike my friend, there are many of us that think only of tomorrow. We miss opportunities to make today a good memory by striving to make tomorrow a better day. There is no guarantee to any of us that there will even be another bunch of flowers, another tomorrow. Yet we will still put those flowers in water and when we look at them we think only of the next bunch. How will we make them last longer, look better, be more enjoyable. There is no enjoyment in any of this. Just as the next bunch of cut flowers arrives we once again think only of what follows.

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