Four Leaf Clovers and Eldercare

Picking up the eldercare journal entries again...

Just when you think your frame of reference for a parent has slipped away and has been replaced with some stranger and utterly unlikeable the Universe has the where-with-all to deliver a sign in a language of words that speaks solely to the intended.

Yesterday, Dad verbally delivered the first stanza from a poem (my dad just doesn't quote poetry EVER). While that's significant in and of itself the underpinning nature of the poem even more poignant...I needed to hear these words.

Four Leaf Clover by Ella Rhoads Higginson (1861-1940)

I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,
And one is for love, you know,
And God put another in for luck—
If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith,
You must love and be strong – and so—
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.