top of page

Straight Paths- Out of the Stream of Life


“Out of the Stream of Life”

Loren Hardin

The Ashland Beacon

     This is part one of a series about Loyal who enrolled in our outpatient hospice program with end-stage lung cancer. Loyal was in his late seventies, thin with silver-gray hair combed straight back. His typical attire was a long-sleeved Oxford shirt with a button-down collar and khaki pants with suspenders. In his prime Loyal owned a trucking company and boxed professionally in St. Louis.  Loyal reflected, “I fought back when you fought every Saturday night for ten dollars a fight”.  He proudly declared, “I’ve been knocked down, but I’ve never been knocked out.” Loyal concluded, “I’ve always thought that life wasn’t very interesting without a challenge.”  So, I asked Loyal, “So what is your challenge now?” Loyal emphatically replied, “To stand up from this couch to my walker as many times a day as I can until I can get enough strength back to drive again.”   

     I asked Loyal, “So, what is it like to have cancer?”  Loyal deliberated briefly then replied, “I feel like I’m out of the stream of life. I used to be in the stream of life. I had several trucks and drivers and transported fruit and vegetables from the south to the north and sold them wholesale.  But now I’m stuck here in this house while people are out there going here and there.  I understand that people have their own lives to live, but people don’t handle that word cancer very well, so they don’t handle you very well either.”  

     A few years ago, I watched a History Channel documentary about the construction of the Hoover Dam.  Construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1936. For those interested in trivia, it was during the construction of the Hoover Dam that hardhats were first used. Workers dipped their cotton hats in tar and allowed them to harden to protect their heads from falling rock. The hats were so effective that the project coordinators ordered the production of thousands of the hats and mandated their use.   

      Now back to the point of this story. I was amazed at how the engineers and workers diverted the flow of the powerful Colorado River so that the dam could be built on the dry riverbed.  Four water diversion tunnels, each fifty-six feet wide were bored through the canyon walls, two on each side of the river.  The workers used only dynamite and jack hammers, no heavy equipment.  A temporary cofferdam was then constructed from the excavated rock to force the Colorado River to flow through the tunnels.  If engineers were able to temporarily redirect the flow of the mighty Colorado River, surely, we can redirect the flow of our lives to reach those who, like Loyal, are “out of the stream of life”.   

      Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949), author, poet, and magazine editor, published a poem in 1919 titled “Around the Corner”. It’s over a hundred years old now but I’m confident you will agree that it is still culturally relevant: “Around the corner I have a friend, in this great city that has no end.  Yet days go by and weeks rush on, and before I know it a year is gone.  And I never see my old friend’s face, for life is a swift and terrible race… Tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes, and the distance between us grows and grows.  Around the corner yet miles away, here’s a telegram, ‘Jim died today’.  And that’s what we get and deserve in the end, around the corner a vanished friend.” 

      Will I care enough to notice when someone hasn’t been around for a while, when someone may be out of the stream of life. Will I care enough to reach out and check on them. Will I care enough to be my brother’s keeper? 

      “I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me…inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me,” (Matthew 25: 35-40). 

      Loren Hardin was a social worker for Southern Ohio Medical Center Hospice for twenty-nine years. You can reach him at 740.357.6091 or at lorenhardin53@gmail.com. You can buy a copy of Loren’s book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course at Amazon. 

 

 

 

 

1 view0 comments

Comments


bottom of page