My dad took my left hand in his right. With his other hand, he stripped the tiny yellow blossoms from a sweet clover stem and then placed them in my hand, closing my small fingers over them tightly.  “This is all the gold you will ever need,” he said.
    We were standing in the empty field across the dirt road from our house at Libb’s Lake, an offshoot of Lake Minnetonka.  My father had just returned to us from a four and a half year stay in the Veteran’s Hospital at Fort Snelling. Mother had used their savings to buy an unwinterized summer cottage so that he could have a place to come home to.  It was the depression, there were four of us children, and there was no welfare in those days.  My father had lung injuries from being gassed in the trenches in World War I.  Tuberculosis had further ravaged his lungs, and doctors had given up hope for him, but they didn’t know my father.
    He lived, we thrived, and now we were together in a little shanty in paradise.  The land around Libb’s Lake, near Gray’s Bay and Deephaven, teemed with trees, wildflowers, and birds.  In the lower branches of the trees in the hardwood forest we called “The Wood Croft,” wood warblers, thrushes, and vireos traveled the trees on their spring migration, harvesting food as they journeyed northward.
    Now that he was home, my father walked in the woods with me.  He showed me marsh marigolds and trilliums, willows and chokecherries, sand pipers and swallows.  He told me about the Ironwood tree and its wood that was impossible to carve or shape.  He showed me how to make whistles from Slippery Elm twigs.  At night we would stand outside under the great wheel of the universe while he told me tales of Orion, Ursa Major and Minor, and Cassiopeia's Chair as they glowed above us.
    He saved me from loneliness, and he taught me how to live. He gave me the names of trees, flowers, fish, and fowl. He showed me joy in life and the wonders of the universe.  
    During our journey through life, we learn how to live from those we love, from literature, art, and music, from mass media and advertising, from religious influences, and from peers. During adolescence the messages from mass media, advertising, and peers may overshadow the lessons from our families, but in the end, the lessons passed on from trustworthy sources are the ones that stick and most truly represent who we are.
    I am convinced at this stage of my life that our most important life task is to learn who we are, what values are most important in setting our goals and dreams, and what talents we have been given and how to use them.  Many times the lessons we learned in childhood can help us find our way through the  faults and fissures that make our path difficult.
    My father’s simple lesson using a wild flower can help one see that focusing on material things in life can get in the way of  appreciating nature and its spiritual influences.  The gold in life is much better when found in a flower than in gold coins sequestered away in a bank vault.  We need enough gold coins for food, shelter, and the other general needs in life, but the trouble comes when one focuses on the gold itself and develops a desire to accumulate more and more. The vice of greed comes into our psyches and drives out the capacity for feeling joy in the moment.  
    Take time each day to meditate on your life journey, to evaluate your dreams and goals, and to start fresh fulfilling the lessons learned in childhood from those who loved you best.

Mary Joan Meagher is the producer/script writer for THE TIME OF OUR LIVES Cable TV Show.   Her web site address is: <http://www.originalhandmadehandbags.com>