Transplanting and Sustaining: Covid-19 Special Issue

I’ll Give You a Daisy a Day, Dear
Vienna Scott
Daisy a Day by Jed Strunk
Every year on Mother’s Day, a little
old man at my parents’ local Lutheran
Church would amble up the aisle,
to the rickety old piano, and pluck out
the country song “Daisy a Day.”
“I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear / I’ll
give you a daisy a day / I’ll love you
until the rivers run still / And the four
winds we know blow away”
While he crooned out the sweet Jud
Strunk lyrics, the ushers and the pastor
would walk up and down the aisle
and distribute a single daisy to each
mother in the congregation. For the
congregants, the folkish ditty was an
endearing commemoration of the sacred
bond between mother and child.
My mother, an elementary school music
teacher who felt vocationally called
to parenthood, braved those Sunday
services with faltering resolve as every
year the ushers passed her by. She was
infertile.
The daisy became a symbol of her
struggle. I imagine her prayers on
those torturous Sundays, like Rebekah
and Elisabeth and Hannah before her,
“O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you
will look upon my sorrow and answer
my prayer and give me a child; give me
a daisy…”
On April 7th, 1999, after four years
of doctors appointments and testing,
friends’ pregnancies and single stripes
on plastic sticks, crying and praying,
my twin sister and I were born. In May
of 1999, she received her first daisy.
Since then, we’ve moved five times and
attended half a dozen other churches.
But, every year on Mother’s Day my
father pulls out his wearied acoustic
guitar and strums the simple C- F- C-
F- C- D- G. While he serenades, one
by one, from youngest to oldest, each
of her nine children hands her a single,
long-stemmed, daisy. They create
a full bouquet.
In yearly celebration, the yellow and
white bud of “Mary’s rose” reminds us
of the constancy and overabundance
of God’s love. Her barrenness was
broken with twins. Doctors balked as
she proceeded to deliver three more
biological children in her state of infertility.
Through adoption, foster care,
and legal guardianship, she is now a
mother to what sometimes feels like
multitudes. The daisy is our proverbial
olive branch, a symbol of prayers fulfilled.
Its exchange has become nearly
covenantal.
While Coronavirus rages outside, we
sit quarantined, like that prophetic
family on an arc, together. Not rain,
but disease fills the outside world.
Every once in a while, I spend some
time outside, moseying around the first
budding flowers, thrusting through the
remaining fringe of snow. Amidst the
crocus buds and daffodil stems, I’m
hoping to find the first daisy of Spring.
If you, like me, are searching for
modest signs of hope in a time of a
near-biblical calamity, I commend
unto you the sweet refrains of “Daisy
a Day.” While the world seems to be
drowning, we worship a God who will
love us till the rivers run still. And the
four winds we know blow away…
He remembers the first time he met her
He remembers the first thing she said
He remembers the first time he held her
And the night that she came to his bed
He remembers her sweet way of sayin
Honey has somethin’ gone wrong
He remembers the fun and the teasin’
And the reason he wrote ‘er this song
I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear
I’ll give you a daisy a day
I’ll love you until the rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away
They would walk down the street in the evenin’
And for years I would see them go by
And their love that was more than the clothes that
they wore
Could be seen in the gleam of their eyes
As a kid they would take me for candy
And I loved to go taggin’ along
We’d hold hands while we walked to the corner
And the old man would sing ‘er his song
I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear
I’ll give you a daisy a day
I’ll love you until the rivers run still
And the four winds we know blow away
Now he walks down the street in the evenin’
And he stops by the old candy store
And I somehow believe he’s believin’
He’s holdin’ ‘er hand like before
For he feels all her love walkin’ with him
And he smiles at the things she might say
Then the old man walks up to the hilltop
And gives her a daisy a day
.
18 Covid-19: Spring 2020 logos . 19