"...we ain't what we should be, we ain't what we're gonna be, but at least we ain't what we were..."

I just finished watching one of my most favorite episodes of Designing Women where Charlene was giving birth to her daughter, Olivia. The title of the episode is "The First Day of the Last Decade of the Entire Twentieth Century" and was aired on CBS on January 1, 1990 (pretty appropriate, I guess).

One of the last scenes in the episode show the main cast huddled around the bed of one of the hospital's oldest patients, Miss Minnie Bell Ward. Being a century old, she was apparently in the hospital a lot, so the hospital staff knew her well, and they invited the Sugarbakers & their friends to come talk to her while they were waiting for Charlene to have her baby.

Miss Minnie apparently had a lot to say regarding her life: watching her children be born & then, one by one, leave her behind. She was obviously so tired & so ready to be done with a life without those people her heart had grown to love over the many many years.

Her last few lines, as she lies in her bed on the verge of her last breath, have always really touched me, and I am sharing them here with you in hopes they touch you too!

"...I thought as I got older, the bold outline of truth would be revealed to me, but it hasn't happened. When I was young, I was in such a hurry. And now, I've been here a hundred years. It seems like only yesterday I held my babies in my arms. I'm glad to be going home. It's been a long time since I've seen my family. And I wish for all of you, all the love and happiness I had in my life -- and I hope the world keeps going toward freedom. And I hope that people everywhere can learn to live together in peace. As my pappa used to say......we ain't what we should be, we ain't what we're gonna be, but at least we ain't what we were....."