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It is not enough to love others; we must let them know that we love them. We must do it, too, before it is too late. Some people wait till the need is past, and then come up with their kindness. When the neighbor is well again they call to say how sorry they are he has been sick. When he has gotten through his sore trial, they come with congratulation. But the time to help is when your friend is in the floods, not when he has gotten out to shore and is safe. The time for friendship is in the friend’s adversity, when evil tongues malign him, and not when he has gotten vindication and stands honored even by strangers.
Then there are those who wait till death has come before they begin to speak their words of love. There are many who say their first truly generous words of others when the others lie in the coffin. They then bring flowers, although they never gave a flower when their friends were alive. Gentle things that lie in the heart and in the tongue for many years unexpressed, first find utterance in death’s sadness. But it is too late then.
“Over the coffin pitiful we stand,
And place a rose within the helpless hand
That yesterday, mayhap, we would not see,
When it was meekly offered. On the heart,
That often ached for an approving word,
We lay forget-me-nots. We turn away,
And find the world is colder for the loss
Of this so faulty and so loving one.
“Think of that moment, ye who reckon close
With love, so much for every gentle thought,–
The moment when love’s richest gifts are naught;
When a pale flower, upon a pulseless breast,
Like your regret, exhales its sweets in vain.”