I’ll Give You a Daisy a Day, Dear
April 7, 2020 | By Vienna Scott, BF ‘21. Vienna is majoring in Religious Studies and Political Science.
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
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…
Daisy a Day by Jed Strunk
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
Wed 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