🌹 The Flowers He Could Still Smell
A three-part series on caregiving, gratitude, healing and legacy.
Part 1 of 3
- ✅ Act I: The Healing Journey: A Story of Gratitude (You’re here)
- ✅ Act II: The Gift of Gratitude: Honoring Our Father
- ✅ Act III: Honoring Our Father’s Legacy
Six months ago, we were fighting to save Dad’s life.
Last Sunday, we discovered the greater miracle.
He lived long enough to hear what his children had carried in their hearts for decades.
Sometimes the most beautiful flowers are the ones people can still smell. 🌹
When someone turns eighty-two…
You start buying fewer birthday cakes and asking deeper questions.
On Sunday, July 28, 2026, my elder brother Daniel Kiarie committed what, in many African families, might be considered a mildly dangerous act.
He suggested we appreciate our father.
“Honor your father and your mother…” Exodus 20:12
Not at the funeral. Not in a eulogy.
Not after arguing over tents, tea, and who forgot to print the obituary.
Now. While he could still hear us.
Or, more accurately, while he could still hear us.
If we sat on his right side. Leaned close enough. And spoke, like we were sharing classified government secrets.
Dad’s hearing isn’t what it used to be.
Neither are his kidneys. Nor his knees.
But thankfully, his sense of humor has refused to retire.
So had his fighting spirit.
Six months earlier, we weren’t planning a thanksgiving gathering.
We were planning for possibilities no child enjoys imagining.
In November 2025, Dad was admitted to St. Francis Hospital with kidney failure.
Thirty-two days later, we wheeled him out.
Not because he had fully recovered, but because he had become determined to leave (the hospital).
He came home unable to feed himself.
Unable to turn himself in bed. Unable to remember conversations.
A professional caregiver became our newest sibling.
Dialysis became Tuesday’s and Friday’s family meeting.
Hope arrived one small milestone at a time.
First he smiled.
Then he talked.
Then he prayed.
Then he insisted on sitting in the co-driver’s seat, instead of the back.
Then he asked to visit church.
Then he wanted to see old friends.
Each outing felt less like a road trip and more like a declaration.
“I’m still here.”
We had written about those victories before.
The caregivers.
The dialysis days.
The first shaky steps.
The quiet miracle of healing happening in slow motion.
But somewhere between hospital discharge and six months later, we realized something.
Perhaps the greatest miracle wasn’t that Dad had survived.
Perhaps it was that he had survived long enough to hear what none of us had ever taken time to say.
Kiarie (our elder bro) looked around the room.
“We should give Dad his flowers.”
Simple words.
Dangerous words.
Because gratitude has an unusual habit.
Once one person starts…
Everyone else suddenly remembers things they had quietly carried for decades.
Within minutes, our living room transformed.
No microphones. No pulpit. No choir.
Just nine siblings. Their spouses.
One recovering bishop.
And enough serviettes to start a small (Jaza) supermarket.
Looking back, I don’t think we were gathering to encourage Dad.
I think God had arranged an appointment for all of us.
Because some flowers are wasted on graves.
Some are meant to be smelled.
And ours was sitting quietly in his favorite chair, wondering why all his children had suddenly become suspiciously emotional.
The afternoon was only beginning.
None of us knew we were about to travel forty years into the past, without leaving the living room.
End of Act I…
Coming Next Week… Act II: Every Flower Smelled Different 🌹
We walked into the living room thinking we were about to encourage Dad.
We had no idea, we were about to travel forty years back in time.
Next week, nine siblings and the spouses they married, take turns sitting beside one recovering father.
There are tears. There is laughter.
There are confessions we’d never heard before.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, we discover that Dad’s greatest inheritance wasn’t land, money, or church buildings.
It was something far more enduring.
🌹 The Flowers He Could Still Smell
#CaregivingJourney #FamilyMatters #HonorYourParents #StillStandng #HealingJourney #FaithAndFamily #LegacyInMotion #Gratitude #ImpossibleIsNothing #HopeLives #GiveThemTheirFlowers
Joseph Ngaara is inspired by people’s stories, especially those shaped by faith, resilience, and grace. If you’ve walked through triumph, tragedy, or something beautifully in between and feel ready to share, my inbox is open. 📩 j.mungai@hotmail.co.uk
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