JanBeek

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If you have roses, bless your soul,

Just pin one on my buttonhole

While I’m alive and well – today;

Don’t wait until  I’ve gone away.

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Don’t tell the folks I was a saint

Or any old thing that I ain’t.

If you have jam like that to spread,

Please pass it out before I’m dead.

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That poem was one of several posted on a piece of cardboard

inside my mom’s kitchen cabinet door. She created the collection

in 1937 from poems posted weekly in the local newspaper.

I have it inside my kitchen cabinet now.

The poet, unknown, went on to write:

Don’t go and buy a large bouquet

For which you find it hard to pay.

Don’t mope around and feel all blue –

I may be better off than you.

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My mom had that poem memorized. She recited it often.

I am grateful for her love of poetry.  She passed it on to me.

I told you in a post this week that my sister (age 82) is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

I was thinking of this poem today as I visited a friend in the hospital,

and as I wrote a card to my sis. I included a collage of pictures from our childhood.

Her short-term memory may be fading, but her long-term memory is intact.

Here is a sampling of some of the photos I included:

She’s on the left. That’s me on the right. We were in junior high here, I think.

Sally was all dolled up for her senior prom.

I’m in red (still my favorite color) and pregnant with our first child.

Sally is in black with her husband and their oldest daughter.

That’s our Dad and Mom in the front (you figured that out!)

Sometimes a collage of old photos is even better than

pinning a rose on your buttonhole, don’t you think?

Just whatever you plan to do, do it!

Don’t wait ’til it’s too late!