Straight Paths- What Else Can I Do?

What Else Can I Do?

Loren Hardin

The Ashland Beacon

             This is part two of a series about Kate who enrolled in outpatient hospice services at age ninety-one with end-stage congestive heart failure. Kate lives with her daughter, Rose, and son-in-law, Bub. Kate continues to exert her independence while Rose attempts to maintain that “delicate balance”, providing care while fostering independence.

             In part one of this series Kate shared a story from her childhood in rural West Virginia. When Kate was ten years old, she was a crack shot with a 22 riffle. Her disabled neighbor sent his son over to Kate’s house to buy a couple chickens. Kate recounted, “I told him I would have to go up in the woods to shoot them. We always let our chickens run around in the woods because when they run around in the woods like that they get as big as turkeys. So, I went up in the woods where they were; I whistled and when they stuck their heads up and looked around, their heads made good targets.”

             A few weeks later Kate shared “The rest of the story”, (Paul Harvey, American radio broadcaster and storyteller). Here’s Kate: “Our neighbor had been a police officer.  One day a little boy found his father’s pistol and hid behind their couch with it. The family tried to coax him out, but he wouldn’t come, so they called the police for help. Our neighbor was the officer on duty and when he tried to take the gun away from the boy it accidentally fired and shot our neighbor in the hip. From that day forward our neighbor was barely able to walk. So, he took up quilting to have something to do.  Other people made fun of him for it, but I thought a lot of him for it.”

             Kate’s story launched us into a discussion about the vital importance of life-long engagement in meaningful activities. Then I dared to point out to Kate that, week after week, when I asked her what she had been up to she always responded, “I’m just putting in my time. I can’t see very well, I can barely walk, and my hearing is bad. What else can I do?” I explained to Kate, “I don’t know if that bothers you, but it sure bothers me.”

            So, Kate and I brainstormed what else she could do. I discovered that Kate loved the Book of Psalms, so her family ordered the book on cassette. She loved reading novels about the Wild West, so we checked out books on cassette from the public library. We talked about the power of our words to encourage and inspire others. Kate suggested, “Maybe God can use some of my spiritual experiences, things that I’ve learned, to help others.” Therefore, Kate started routinely reaching out, checking on family and friends and praying for them”. 

            I’ve observed that life progresses in developmental stages with corresponding tasks. And I’ve observed that in life, like in competitive sports, that games can be won or lost in the transitions. With every new stage of life, we are presented with the question, “What else can I do”; and it’s only by seriously contemplating and answering that question that we continue to live. Kate did, and I think a lot of her for it. 

             Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher wrote, “Stop harking back to what you were once when God wants you to become something we’ve never been,” (My Utmost for His Highest). And the Apostle Paul wrote, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 3:12-14). 

             Don’t let it be written on your tombstone, ‘Died age fifty, buried age seventy’,” (Anonymous).

             Loren Hardin worked as a hospice social worker for twenty-nine years. He can be contacted at lorenhardin53@gmail.com or at 740.357.6091. You can order a copy of Loren’s book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course,”