Several weeks ago, I was out on my deck watering my flowers and I looked down at my pot of Hen and Chicks and one of the huge older plants had shot up towards the heavens and had bloomed! I had never in my lifetime seen one of these plants do this. I called to my husband to come and see and asked him if he had ever seen this and he said no as well.

The blooms on this plant were so beautiful and because I was so curious I asked on Facebook if any of my friends and family had seen this before. Most of my contacts replied that they had not but there was this one friend that said that the plant will do this right before it dies. I gasped and asked, “My whole pot will die?”. She replied that the pot would be fine but just this one plant would die.

We went on vacation about that time so I kind of forgot about my unusual plant and when we got back I had to go out and see if my friend was correct.

The plant still had some blooms on it but was beginning to fade and as you can see parts of the life of the plant were already gone.

A few weeks later this is what I saw:

My friend was absolutely correct! The entire plant had died even though all the rest around it was just fine and healthy as could be.

This process that took place in my plant got me to thinking. I am 61 years old and compared to a basketball game I feel like I am in the fourth quarter of life.

My husband and I are both retired now after raising 4 children and working really hard on our jobs for years. Are we to just sit down and quit and coast on out of this life? I do not think so. My take is that we are to continue to grow and blossom until the day that we die.

In Psalm 92:14 of the NIV version it reads: They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,

That verse confirms what I already believe that we as older persons have a lot of knowledge and gifts that we can pass down before we die. We can be an encourager and a helper to the younger folk. We can lend a hand when they need us and we can love on little children and spend one on one time with them when young parents are in the rush of just making a life.

I learned a lot from my little plant that day and I hope that you do too. This is what it looks like now:

I marvel at this picture the most for as you see the dead plant left an empty space in the pot but I guarantee that by next summer all those little baby plants will grow in size and that space will be filled. So is the cycle of life. We grow to maturity and then we die and make room for the next ones following behind us.

I do not have any problems with aging because I feel needed somewhere everyday and look for the opportunities. I hope you do too older folk!