Pay It Forward

I’m stepping out of my normal format this week. I’m not writing about a hospice patient. I’m writing about one of those short lived personal encounters that make a lasting impression upon you; about Charlie.

My wife and I bought our first house back in the 70’s. It was a fixer upper, but unfortunately I wasn’t. I tore out the fireplace and gutted the kitchen and bathrooms at the same time. (Big mistake!) So we had to shower at my in-laws and we “didn’t have a pot to …”. Needless to say, things were getting pretty stressful on the home front.

I’d just started working at the hospital as a social worker. Our office was in the basement adjacent to the Home Care Department and Jean, a Home Care nurse, overheard me moaning to my coworker about my remodeling woes. Jean graciously and sympathetically suggested, “You should call my husband, Charlie, he’d be glad to help you out.” Jean not only volunteered Charlie, she dispatched him.
In my eyes, Charlie was a relatively old fellow back then, in his late forties. He was a carpenter at the local steel mill and had been a civil engineer with the railroad. He surveyed the chaos and then asked, “What do you want to accomplish here?” He directed, “I’ll get you started and when you get one thing done I’ll come back and help you get the next thing lined out.” We started with preparing the kitchen walls for new cabinets. Next he lined me out on rewiring; then plumbing, then paneling, then the ceiling, and finally installing the cabinets. I’m so thankful Charlie didn’t do the work for me; instead he taught me how to do it myself.

I felt so indebted to Charlie that I insisted on paying him. Instead he asked me to promise him one thing in return, “Just be willing to do the same thing for someone else.”

I recently watched a movie that reminded me of Charlie, titled, “Pay It Forward.” A seventh grade social studies teacher gave his class an assignment, “Think of an idea to change the world and put it into action.” The next day the students were called on to share their ideas. A student named Trevor shared his plan; that if he did something for three people and those three people did something for three more people, then that would make nine, and so on. Trevor added, “But you can’t pay the good deeds back; you have to pay them forward.” He added, “It has to be really big, something that they can’t do for themselves…You can’t plan it. You have to watch people more. You have to keep your eye on them, to protect them; because they can’t always see what they need…It’s like your big chance to fix something that’s not like your bike. You can fix a person.”

Charlie lined me out on more than home remodeling that year. He lined me out on an inescapable, wonderful, life-giving spiritual principle. Can you imagine what our world would be like, what we would be like, if we made it our mission to “Pay it Forward?”

Sister Severin, my administrative supervisor at Mercy Hospital back in 1990, gave me a gift when I earned my Masters Degree in Social Work. It’s a small framed picture of St. Francis with a hand written note and a poem written on the back. She wrote, “May we, like Francis , be instruments of peace”. Sister Severin passed St. Francis’ prayer on to me, so I’m paying it forward to you.

“Prayer of St. Frances:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred…let me sow love,
Where there is injury…pardon.
Where there is discord…unity.
Where there is doubt…faith.
Where there is error…truth.
Where there is despair…hope,
Where there is sadness…joy.
Where there is darkness…light.
O Divine Master, grant that I may no so much seek to be consoled…as to console.
To be understood…as to understand.
To be loved…as to love.
For it is in giving…that we receive.
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned.
It is in dying…that we are born to eternal life."

A Season and a Time

This is the last of a four part series about Doc’s journey with terminal cancer; about a country doctor turned patient (part 1, 2, 3). Doc’s response epitomizes the hope that hospice holds for all our patients; that they will continue living the best they can with the illnesses they have; accepting the truth without resignation. And Doc’s example offers us a glimmer of hope; hope that if he can do it maybe we can too.

Terminal illness, like life, unfolds in stages or seasons. Each progressive developmental stage presents new challenges, new tasks, new questions that must be successfully addressed in order to move forward. Wise King Solomon understood the importance and beauty of timing, of identifying and cooperating with the seasons: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven…He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)

Doc understood there is a time to prepare, and he did. After completing his unfinished legal and spiritual business he exclaimed, “I feel like a boy let out of school!” Doc also understood that there’s a time to surrender, to relax in and trust the arms of a loving God. Doc testified, “You know, some people receive a special strength from the Lord. I’ve always been fortunate that way…I just relax and a peace comes over me”. Doc also realized the importance of living each day to its fullest. As if struck by an epiphany Doc declared, “I decided that since I’m still here, I may as well live.” And he did.

Following are some of Doc’s final feelings and thoughts that he shared with me in the last few weeks of his life: “On bad days I feel like I could go ahead and die, but I still have things to do…They aren’t big things anymore. I want to see my family, to be with them, to hear the voices of my family, my grandchildren, and my friends…I’m fortunate I have had time to prepare, but I don’t know what it (death) will be like.”

As Doc’s life was winding down it was evident that he was facing his final task of shifting his hope from the physical to the spiritual, from the temporal to the eternal, to the road ahead. And he was definitely “fortunate” that he had time to prepare.

You know, time seems to elude definition and boundaries; maybe because it’s spiritually eternal. We talk about time as something we “have” or “get”. How many times have you told yourself or someone else, “I didn’t get the time to…”; “I just didn’t have the time…”; “I will when I get the time.” I’m realizing that time isn’t something we “have” or “get” it’s something we “take” and “make”, something we “fill”. You see Doc took the time to prepare and he made time for his family. He filled his remaining time with what he valued. Sure there are times when we’re overwhelmed. But if we’re honest about it, don’t we take the time and make the time for those things that are really important to us?

So let’s identify and cooperate with the seasons and the times of our lives. For, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Let’s “take” the time and “make” the time for those things which are of spiritual and eternal significance. And the time to do so is now, because our time on this earth is not guaranteed.

I’ll leave you with a verse given to me by an elderly lady over twenty years ago. She told me that it helped her cope with the challenges, stages and adjustments of life: “Take Time for 10 Things. 1) Take time to work…It is the price of success. 2) Take time to think…It is the source of power. 3) Take time to play…It is the secret of youth. 4) Take time to read…It is the foundation of knowledge. 5) Take time to worship…It is the highway of reverence and washes the dust of the earth from our eyes. 6) Take time to help and enjoy friends…It is the source of happiness. 7) Take time to love…It is the one sacrament of life. 8) Take time to dream…It hitches the soul to the stars. 9) Take time to laugh…It is the singing that helps with life’s loads. 10) Take time to plan…It is the secret of being able to have the time to take time for the first nine things.