President Hugh B. Brown.
As a young soldier in World War I, he was visiting an elderly friend in the hospital. This friend was a millionaire several times over who, at the age of eighty, was lying at death’s door. Neither his divorced wife nor any of his five children cared enough to come to the hospital to see him. As President Brown thought of the things his friend “had lost which money could not buy and noted his tragic situation and the depth of his misery,” he asked his friend how he would change the course of his life if he had it to live over again.
The old gentleman, who died a few days later, said: “ ‘As I think back over life the most important and valuable asset which I might have had but which I lost in the process of accumulating my millions, was the simple faith my mother had in God and in the immortality of the soul.
“ ‘… You asked me what is the most valuable thing in life. I cannot answer you in better words than those used by the poet.’ ” He asked President Brown to get a little book out of his briefcase from which he read a poem entitled “I’m an Alien.”
I’m an alien, to the faith my mother taught me.
I’m a stranger to the God that heard my mother when she cried.
I’m an alien to the comfort that, “Now I lay me,” brought me.
To the everlasting arms that held my father when he died.
When the great world came and called me, I deserted all to follow.
Never noting in my blindness I had slipped my hand from His.
Never dreaming in my dazedness that the bubble fame is hollow.
That the wealth of gold is tinsel, as I since have learned it is.
I have spent a lifetime seeking things I spurned when I found them,
I have fought and been rewarded in many a winning cause,
But I’d give it all, fame and fortune and the pleasures that surround them,
If I only had the faith that made my mother what she was.
“That was the dying testimony of a man who was born in the Church but had drifted far from it. That was the brokenhearted cry of a lonely man who could have anything money could buy, but who had lost the most important things of life in order to accumulate this world’s goods” (Continuing the Quest, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961, pp. 32–35; italics added).
November 1997
Poem:
Thoughts from a Dying Man
Mistakes were made, only now realized
The dreams not made, have finally capsized
Here I weep and dry tears I've cried
These are the thoughts from a dying man.
Upon thy bed I look and wait
As darkness vows to enter my gate
My time, too soon and now, it's too late
Thoughts from a dying man.
Afar my love, my mind eye sees
Of time long gone spent joyfully
Amongst the willows and green pageantry
Thoughts from a dying man.
Cheated of time, I know I'm owed.
Too young am I, when others say I'm too old.
A moment, so small, in the life of a world.
Thoughts from a dying man.
No longer will I see the flowers of Spring.
The gentle breeze, the rolling wind
The faces, the friends, the feelings they bring.
The thoughts from a dying man.
The thoughts they cease
When bloods run cold
Here engraved
Upon my stone.
What money cannot buy are the most valuable things in life.
President Hugh B. Brown.
As a young soldier in World War I, he was visiting an elderly friend in the hospital. This friend was a millionaire several times over who, at the age of eighty, was lying at death’s door. Neither his divorced wife nor any of his five children cared enough to come to the hospital to see him. As President Brown thought of the things his friend “had lost which money could not buy and noted his tragic situation and the depth of his misery,” he asked his friend how he would change the course of his life if he had it to live over again.
The old gentleman, who died a few days later, said: “ ‘As I think back over life the most important and valuable asset which I might have had but which I lost in the process of accumulating my millions, was the simple faith my mother had in God and in the immortality of the soul.
“ ‘… You asked me what is the most valuable thing in life. I cannot answer you in better words than those used by the poet.’ ” He asked President Brown to get a little book out of his briefcase from which he read a poem entitled “I’m an Alien.”
I’m an alien, to the faith my mother taught me.
I’m a stranger to the God that heard my mother when she cried.
I’m an alien to the comfort that, “Now I lay me,” brought me.
To the everlasting arms that held my father when he died.
When the great world came and called me, I deserted all to follow.
Never noting in my blindness I had slipped my hand from His.
Never dreaming in my dazedness that the bubble fame is hollow.
That the wealth of gold is tinsel, as I since have learned it is.
I have spent a lifetime seeking things I spurned when I found them,
I have fought and been rewarded in many a winning cause,
But I’d give it all, fame and fortune and the pleasures that surround them,
If I only had the faith that made my mother what she was.
“That was the dying testimony of a man who was born in the Church but had drifted far from it. That was the brokenhearted cry of a lonely man who could have anything money could buy, but who had lost the most important things of life in order to accumulate this world’s goods” (Continuing the Quest, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961, pp. 32–35; italics added).
November 1997
Poem:
Thoughts from a Dying Man
Mistakes were made, only now realized
The dreams not made, have finally capsized
Here I weep and dry tears I've cried
These are the thoughts from a dying man.
Upon thy bed I look and wait
As darkness vows to enter my gate
My time, too soon and now, it's too late
Thoughts from a dying man.
Afar my love, my mind eye sees
Of time long gone spent joyfully
Amongst the willows and green pageantry
Thoughts from a dying man.
Cheated of time, I know I'm owed.
Too young am I, when others say I'm too old.
A moment, so small, in the life of a world.
Thoughts from a dying man.
No longer will I see the flowers of Spring.
The gentle breeze, the rolling wind
The faces, the friends, the feelings they bring.
The thoughts from a dying man.
The thoughts they cease
When bloods run cold
Here engraved
Upon my stone.
