Dawn's Notes
The Gift - August 2021
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
It was my first day on the job at a health department several years ago. As I was introduced to staff that morning, someone pointed out a new plaque on the wall that was placed in memory of a former 25-year- old employee who had recently died in an automobile wreck. Her co-workers loved her and were still grieving her loss. The words on the plaque have stayed with me since that day. Here are the words.
Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift,
That’s why they call it the present.
The first lines of the original piece, written in the early 1900s, are: “The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man.” (author Alice Morse Earle).
Especially now that I am older, my weeks and years seem to be flying by more quickly than ever, and trivial interruptions often snatch my time as the clock keeps on ticking—“time waits for no man.”
One of the most haunting songs I have ever listened to is “The Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry and Sandy Chapin. The song tells the story of a father who spent so much time making a living that he missed out of some of his young son’s milestones, like learning to talk and walk.
The son would ask, “When are you coming home, dad?” and his dad would reply, “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then. You know we’ll have a good time then.”
When the boy was ten, he wanted his father to play ball with him, but the dad answered, “Not today, I’ve got a lot to do.”
And son replied, “That’s okay, and he walked away….” Repeatedly through the song, the boy says, “I’m gonna be like you, dad, you know I’m gonna be like you,” and the boy still seemed to genuinely admire his father.
The father retired and turned his attention to his son, but by then the son had his own life. The dad asked his son, “When you coming home, son?” and the son replied, “I don’t know when. But we’ll get together then, dad. You know we’ll have a good time then.”
I think the father should be commended for being a faithful employee and making a good living for his family. But the father seems to have lost out on time with his son who had grown up just like his daddy.
Sheldon Harnick, lyricist for the song “Sunrise, Sunset,” seemed to realize how fast the years fly by, how fast our children and grandchildren grow from children to adults. Some of Mr. Harnick’s words are “Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years. One season following another, laden with happiness and tears.”
I once saw a large billboard that said TIME=LOVE and LOVE=TIME. Sometimes it is difficult to enjoy our “gift” of today when our thoughts are stuck in the past or we are worrying about the future. The present, right now, is the only thing we have any control over.
Three things that are gone forever—“the word after it is said, the moment after it is missed, and time after it is gone” (author unknown). So invest your moments in people or endeavors that matter.
Show kindness. Be grateful. Treasure your memories. Make the most of your time and live your life with purpose so you will have no regrets. Remember, “today is a gift—that’s why we call it the present.”
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator