“We won’t be around much longer, so you might as well have it.”
That’s what Jim said when I asked him about a stunning yellow bush in his backyard. I was reminded of those words when I went to his wife’s funeral a couple of weeks ago.
When I was new to Abilene, I tried to notice what worked in other people’s flowerbeds so I could bring some color to our barren yard. There was a large corner lot that frequently caught my eye because there was always a flower in bloom.
So one evening I stopped walking my neighborhood route and asked the elderly man about the yellow bush that he was watering.
“You won’t be able to buy one in Abilene. I planted these from seed. It’s a cassia. But come by in the spring and I’ll give you mine. We won’t be around much longer, so you might as well have it.”
A few months later when I took an evening walk he motioned me over and told me that the moon was going to be right for a transplant the following day.
“Bring a big pot and shovel and you can take the bush home.”
I barely knew Jim at the time, so I felt badly that he was giving me his only cassia bush. And yet I was excited. I could already imagine its beauty in my backyard covered with yellow blossoms in the summer. Gary, my husband, convinced me that if Jim wanted to give it away, then I should accept it.
So I accepted it. It was the first of many gifts that I accepted over the next ten years from Jim and Mary Ballard.
“Go look along the back fence and find that dark purple iris. Dig it up and take some home with you. It’s my favorite.”
And then there were the white irises, other purple irises, the Peruvian daffodil and Shasta daisies too. It wasn’t just flowers, either.
“Take this cookbook with you,” Mary said, “and try that chicken recipe.” (She always asked me what I was cooking for supper that night.)
The greatest gift, though, that I received from Jim and Mary was not anything I carried home in my hands. The greatest gift was the privilege of walking with them on the last stretch of their life journey.
Watching someone live with the awareness that they “won’t be around much longer,” is a rich lesson. During our friendship I watched age strip them of the superfluous and whittle their lives down to the bare essentials. While I’m accumulating things, they got rid of things–everything. While my world grows larger, their world became smaller. They gracefully reminded me of what matters most in life.
So when I went to Mary’s funeral a couple of weeks ago, I felt the finality of our friendship. She was over ninety, but I won’t tell you her exact age because she always said,
“A woman who tells her age will tell anything.” We had a long farewell–Jim passed away a couple of years ago, and Mary slowly made her exit with Alzheimer’s.
Jim was right, though. They weren’t around for too much longer after I met them.
But the gifts that I received from our friendship will linger. The irises will bloom in the spring. The daisies will smile at me throughout the summer. The cassia bush will display its splendor until the first freeze in the fall. And during the winter I will enjoy the hope of spring.
And they’ll all remind me of lessons learned from Jim and Mary–what matters most in life.
