The Folding of the Petals

by Jerrold Ham  © 2000

The folding of the petals means that night is almost here.
The day has turned to twilight; and the sun soon disappears.
The flowers sleep in silence as they wait for morning's light.
They seem to be at peace as they rest throughout the night.

The flowers are our loved ones, whose blossoms we have shared,
They clothed and fed and taught us, they showed us that they cared.
And suddenly it seems they're in the twilight of their years.
As we watch their petals folding, we can't hold back the tears.

But their story is not over; they're only resting for awhile,
And when the dawn arrives, they'll awaken with a smile.
With a growing sense of joy, the dawn begins to break.
The birds begin to sing, and the flowers, they awake.

As they meet the Lord, it will be a beautiful sight.
Their petals will spring open to receive His glorious light.
The folding of the petals is not the end, I know.
It's just another step on the journey we must go.

Jerrold Ham is a seventy year old LPN, and his wife is an RN. They live in Spokane, and have two sons in their early thirties. For nearly six years - from late December, 1995 to September 8th, 2001 they took care of his mother who passed away due to Alzheimer's disease on September 8, 2001. Jerry quit his job as a home health care nurse to stay at home with his mother as her primary - 24/7 - caregiver. After her passing, He resumed working as a home health care nurse. He writes, “caring for a loved one can be a rather rough experience, but even in the darkest of those experiences God is at work in ways that we could never imagine.”