Living on Grace Street

Dennis was fifty-three years old when he enrolled in hospice because of esophageal cancer. Dennis was living on Grace Street in New Boston, Ohio when he moved in with his brother, Dean, because he could no longer care for himself.

Dennis and I both grew up in New Boston, a small Southern Ohio town. I’d even lived on Grace Street when I was in the third grade. It was a lot like growing up in “Mayberry” (“The Andy Griffith Show”, 1960’s and 70’s). We enjoyed a sense of community, safety and security. We had our community characters and even had a policeman a lot like old Barney Fyffe. In New Boston, everyone knew everyone; maybe too well at times. And I knew several of Dennis’ seven brothers and sisters, all with first names starting with “D”; but I didn’t get to know Dennis very well until he became our hospice patient.

Dennis had a tracheotomy and covered the hole in his throat with his finger so he could talk. But he liked to talk and I liked talking with him. While Dennis was in our inpatient care center he and I reminisced about “the good ole days”. We even exchanged a few confessions and Dennis seemed to especially enjoy mine. Dennis later told his sister, Donna, with a grin and some delight, ‘I can’t believe that out of him.’

But Dennis had some pretty interesting confessions of his own. He confessed that he had been an alcoholic. He admitted, “I went to the bars looking for women but I usually came home with two black eyes.” Dennis wasn’t a big fellow but he was game. His brother, Dean, told me, “I had to rescue him from many a fight…He would take on three guys at a time.” Dennis had even been barred from the MT Corral, one of New Boston’s favorite watering holes.

There was something likeable about Dennis besides him being a fellow New Bostonian. There was a grace about Dennis; he didn’t seem to be proud, pretentious or judgmental, which I’ve found is usually the fruit brokenness, of humility. Donna told me, “He would do anything for anybody.”

You know, it’s easy to form a jaded opinion of people with drug or alcohol addictions. I shared a lesson with Dennis and Donna that I learned from my daughter Jessie. After one of Jessie’s close friends died from an overdose she told me, “Dad someone needs to tell people that just because someone has a drug problem it doesn’t mean that they’re a worthless person!” She described her friend as one of the most caring, tender-hearted and understanding people she’d ever known. Her respect, appreciation and grief were all profound.

A few weeks before Dennis’ death he wanted his sister, Donna, to take him back to his house on Grace Street for a few hours. Donna recounted, “I was really worried that something would happen. There are three steps and then two steps to get in the house. When we got in he sat down in his chair for a few minutes and went through some papers. Then he said, ‘Alright, I’m ready to go.’” Donna reflected, “I’m so glad I took him.”

In route to visit a patient in West Portsmouth I came across “Easy Street”. Really, it exists! And on Interstate 68, east of Morgantown, W.Va., I saw an exit to Fair Chance Road on Cheat Lake. I guess if you lived on Cheat Lake you would hope for a Fair Chance. You know a lot of people want to live on “Easy Street” but, like Dennis, I frequently find myself longing to go back to “Grace Street”.

I know God’s saving grace but I sometimes fall from His sustaining grace; because I start thinking, “I can do it on my own. I don’t need anybody’s help”; not even Gods. I become deluded into thinking I can be my own savior; that I can prove myself; that I can be good enough. But sooner or later, I find myself back on the knees of my heart praying, “God help me”. And again I find myself longing to be back on “Grace Street”, and I am.

I think many of you will remember this nursery rhyme: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And all the kings horses and all the King’s men; couldn’t put Humpty together again.” Nothing but bad news for Humpty but there’s good news (The Gospel) for us, because: “Jesus Christ came to our wall, Jesus Christ died for our fall; so that regardless of death and in spite of our sin, through grace, He might put us together again.” (“The Tardy Oxcart”; by Chuck Swindoll)

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage…whoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:1-4)