A Tribute To Patience and Love

When I was a kid, patience was one of those things that families like mine worked hard to develop in the emerging personalities of their offspring.  It was considered a virtue, and accompanied other traits like honesty and hard work as important ingredients in a person’s character.  Today it seems that patience is viewed as less and less important in the life of individuals.  And thinking about it, it’s probably not their fault.

Consider how the world works these days.  With technology being  such an integral part of our lives, everything seems to be quick and accessible in mere seconds.  For example, unlike the days when you had to write a letter on paper, put it in a stamped envelope, and walk it to the mailbox, now we plop down at the computer and our message is instantly transmitted to its destination anywhere in the world.  Were that not enough, in seconds we can bother people all around us with the insignificant minutia of our humdrum lives, using a multitude of networking tools that make such inane communication almost instantaneous.

And it’s like that with a growing number of transactions we take for granted in our modern lives.  Recently I was with my aunt when she called “OnStar” to get an update on how her car was running.  In mere seconds an operator did a full analysis of her engine, and let her know that everything was functioning correctly.  Simply amazing!  No driving to a service station where a mechanic has to lift the hood while you wait a substantial amount of time as he checks out each component by hand.

Whether it’s ATM machines that do away with you having to walk into a bank to transact business, or it’s coffee machines that brew a perfect cup of coffee in a matter of seconds, the list of things that require patience these days is becoming shorter and shorter.  And when you can cook something in a microwave in five minutes that would have taken thirty using a traditional stovetop, or Google something to get information that might have taken hours to research at the library, or GPS a location without having to consult a map (which the refolding process alone, took almost ten full minutes), you know we’ve developed a “quick fix” mentality with little tolerance for delay.

All that considered, and despite the sad fact that patience no longer seems to be a virtue widely valued or deemed relevant, I recently experienced something that, at least for me, demonstrates it remains an important and worthwhile life skill. The picture that heads this post is a gardenia bush over which a beloved uncle of mine patiently toiled for many years.  When he first encountered the plant, it was scrawny and in need of care in order to survive.  So he began to  prune, feed, and protect it from harm just like it was a vulnerable child. He did this faithfully for fifteen long years, and slowly…… ever slowly, it grew stronger and larger.  Still, during all that time, it was never quite ready to produce buds and bring forth flowers.

Well, my uncle died a few months ago, leaving behind not only those of us who loved him, but the little bush he had faithfully tended for SO many years.  And while we were distracted by the grieving process, something absolutely wonderful happened.  For the very first time ever, his bush BLOOMED!  And the beautiful white flowers it produced were like silent words uttered directly to Uncle himself, saying, “Thank you for never giving up  on me. While these first precious flowers are the only way I can show my appreciation for your patience and faith in me, I offer them to you and your family with my sincerest thanks and deepest affection.  They are indeed a tribute to your character and quiet strength as a man.”