Straight Paths- You Need to Finish What You Start

You Need to Finish What You Start

Loren Hardin

For The Ashland Beacon

     Norma was seventy-six years old when she enrolled in outpatient hospice services.  Norma was born and raised in Wheelersburg, Ohio, but worked for twenty-five years in Cleveland, and a few years in Marion, Ohio, before returning full circle to her daughter, Essie’s, home in Wheelersburg.  Norma is outgoing and feisty. She loves her Coke and ice cream and she’s adamant about keeping her toenails and fingernails “painted’. She shared, “I love being around people. I love to travel, just me and my little dog.”  

     About four months into Norma’s hospice care her condition declined and she was admitted into our inpatient hospice center.  Garnet, Norma’s nurse, reported, “Her oxygen levels are down, and her chest is tight.” And Norma was experiencing some slight confusion.  On the fourth day of Norma’s inpatient stay she reported to me, “I’m feeling a lot better. They thought I had a heart attack, but I didn’t. I hope I get to go home today.” 

     Prior to her admission to the hospice center, Norma planned on traveling to Marion to spend a week with her other daughter. I asked Norma if she was still planning on going and she replied, “I’m not giving up. I’m not quitting. I never was a quitter. I’ve always finished what I started. I tried to pound that into my daughters’ heads too. I like to work puzzles and Essie did too.  I bought her large-piece puzzles when she was only two or three.  I bought her things that would stimulate her brain; that she would have to work on to figure out. She’d get frustrated sometimes and wanted me to work the puzzle for her, but I wouldn’t. I told her, “No, you have to finish it. You need to finish what you start.’ And she’s still like that today, she finishes what she starts.  She’ll say in the evening, ‘I’m not going to start because I don’t have time to finish it.’ I’ve seen a lot of pole barns in the country that are unfinished.  You can tell they’ve been there a long time by the way the rain has washed over them; and I think, ‘What a waste!’”

     I knew Norma was finished talking when she turned up the volume on the TV. One thing I’ve learned in hospice is, “Never interfere with a patient’s soap opera”. Another lesson I’ve learned in hospice is, “Never turn your back on a Billy goat”, but that story is for another day.  

     Norma’s dismay over all those unfinished pole barns reminds me of a parable of Jesus: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—lest after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all those who see it begin to mock him saying, ‘This man began to build but was not able to finish it,’” (Luke 14:28-25).

     I believe we are divinely engineered for accomplishment.  Debby, our hospice clinical educator, is my go-to person when I need to better understand a clinical issue.  So, I asked Debby to help me better understand how our bodies respond when we complete or finish a task.  Here’s Debby: “The pituitary gland produces endorphins.  They are like a narcotic, a natural form of morphine.  When we complete a task, the endorphins are released into the opioid receptors of the dorsal horns of the vertebrae, the spinal cord, and we experience a rush, a natural high.  It’s like a runner’s high. When the rush plateaus we experience an aftermath of a sense of well-being, of freedom, a physical and mental release; a letting go.”  Debby explained that the intensity of the reward seems to correspond with the difficulty of the task and with how well we finish. Debby concluded, “When you finish something it’s like when you wrap a present; you tie a ribbon around it and put the bow on top, and then you have something to present, a present, a gift. Until you finish something you don’t have anything of value to offer to others. That what Jesus did for us on the cross when He said, ‘It is finished’”. 

      So, is there something you need to finish? Keep in mind, one small well finished task is worth more than a thousand big ideas.

     “Let your endurance become a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete…” (James 1:4; Moffatt translation). 

     Loren Hardin was a social worker with Southern Ohio Medical Center Hospice for twenty-nine years. You can purchase a copy of his book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course”, from Amazon.