This is part one of a series about Kate who enrolled in outpatient hospice services with end-stage congestive heart failure. Kate was born in West Virginia. She married at 17 and migrated to southern Ohio where she’s lived most of her life. As a young girl she was a crack shot with a 22 rifle. When Kate was 10 years old their neighbor sent his son over to Kate’s house to buy a couple chickens. Kate recounted, “I asked him if he wanted them today or for later, and he told me his father would like them for supper that night. I told him I already let them out and couldn’t get them back until later, so I would have to go up in the woods and shoot them. We always let our chickens run around in the woods like that because they would get as big as turkeys. So, I went up to the woods where they were and whistled. They stuck their heads up to look around and their heads made good targets. A few days later the old man next door told me, ‘If you can shoot like that, I know I’m not going to mess around up there’. I told him that he didn’t have any business messing around our house anyway.”
Kate is now a spry strong-willed ninety-year-old widow who lives with her daughter, Rose, and son-in-law, Bub. There was a preexisting bone of contention between Kate and Rose when I made my first visit. We were standing at the foot of Kate’s bed when Rose pleaded, “Loren, will you tell mom not to get out of bed and try to walk to the bathroom by herself?” I replied, “Rose, I don’t think I can do that. Your mom is of sound mind, and I respect her right to make her own decisions.” Kate interjected, “Rose and Bub’s room is all the way on the other side of the house, and I don’t want to disturb them in the middle of the night every time I need to go to the bathroom. So, what I do is pray and ask God if it’s okay if I get up by myself. If He says it’s okay, then I get up.” How can anyway argue against that!
I could tell my response took Rose by surprise; therefore, I felt the need to explain. I explained that my father-in-law, Dave, suffered a series of five strokes, and like Kate, would try to walk without assistance. Consequently, we were continually picking him up off the floor. One day, after my mother-in-law called me for help, I found Dave lying on his side on the living room floor. I proceeded to scold him, “Dave, how many times have we told you not to try to walk by yourself!” I would have never dared to talk to my father-in-law like that when he was healthy and vital. I will never forget his defeated and resigned response, “Okay, I’ll never walk again.” I felt terrible, about an inch tall. That was the day that I realized that there are some things worse than a broken bone, and that’s a broken spirit. So, I apologized and told Dave that no matter how many times he falls that I would be there to pick him up.
Rose, Kate, and I spent the remainder of the visit talking about how caregiving involves a “delicate balance”, between providing support and encouraging independence. Since then, I’ve come to realize the importance of a “delicate balance”, not just in caregiving, but in all our relationships. Allow me to illustrate by paraphrasing the story of “Sid the caterpillar”. One day Sid attached himself to a leaf and started spinning a cocoon around himself. You might have thought that there was nothing happening inside, but a transformation was taking place. After many days Sid started struggling to break free. No matter how well meaning, if you tried to help Sid by pulling on his wings you would maim him for life.
I was recently striving to rescue someone that I care about. After listening to my concerns and advice they respectfully responded, “I know how you feel. But don’t you think I need to reach my own conclusions?” I explained, “You’re right. I’m letting go, but I’ll never walk away.”
“It takes a long time to realize the danger of becoming an amateur providence, that is interfering with God’s order for others…If you try to prevent the suffering in another’s life it will prove to be an obstruction between your soul and God’s. If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God’s order…instead of putting out your hand to prevent the throes, pray that they grow ten times stronger until there is no power on earth or in hell that can hold their soul away from Christ Jesus. When we put our sympathy in the way, the soul will one day say, ‘That one was a thief, he stole my affections from Jesus, and I lost my vision of Him’”, (My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers).
Loren Hardin worked as a hospice social worker for twenty-nine years. He can be reached at lorenhardin53@gmail.com or (740) 357-6091. You can purchase a copy of his book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course”, at Amazon.
