By Loren Hardin-

This is part two of a two-part series about Shirley who was admitted to hospice for terminal cancer.  In part one, “I hope you dance,” Shirley shared that she and her husband loved to dance.  She admitted, “My husband had to have a few beers before he would dance, but I didn’t need anything.  I just loved to dance.  But he had to stop drinking due to health problems so we stopped dancing too. So we just started watching TV and going out to eat.  I really didn’t enjoy it though.  I was bored. We just couldn’t think of anything else that we wanted to do, so we just started to mold. Loren, promise me that whatever you do, don’t ever let yourself start to mold.”
Allow me to regress and tell you how I first met Shirley.  I called several times to schedule my initial social work visit, but each time Shirley politely declined.  I was about to give up when her daughter Karen suggested, “Just show up unannounced”. I didn’t feel very comfortable with it but I did. I walked up to the sliding glass doors at the back of the house and saw Shirley sitting at the kitchen table.  I knocked, but Shirley just waved me off and said, “Go away.” But I shook my head “no” and knocked again.  We engaged in a volley of hand waves and head shakes, but I finally prevailed and she motioned me to come in.
Shirley and I immediately clicked.  She admitted, “They think I’m depressed and that I should see a psychiatrist or counselor, but what are they going to tell me that I don’t already know?  But just sitting here talking to you like this isn’t too bad.”  So, for almost a year, that’s what we did. Shirley was delighted when she realized that she could make me blush, which isn’t easy to do. One day while sitting at the kitchen table with her hired caregiver present, she stretched her arm across with a clinched fist and said, “Here, I want to give you something.”  She dropped a single Hershey’s kiss in my hand and said, “I’ve been wanting to give you this for a long time.”  Then she puckered her lips and blew me a kiss. I can still see that mischievous grin on her face.
Over the months Shirley’s health declined and I asked, “Do you think it’s just the progression of your illness or due to your pneumonia?”   She replied, “I think I’m in the last stage of my life.”  I suggested there was another stage and Shirley replied, “I know there is, but no one has gone there and came back to tell us about it.  So, I just need a little reassurance.  I need to be reminded once in a while.”
Shirley and I concluded that the only source of reassurance of eternity, of another stage of life, is the word of God. So that’s where we turned. We talked about how God reassured Joshua. After the death of Moses, Joshua stepped in to lead more than two million people across the Jordan River to go in and possess the Promised Land.  He was facing overwhelming obstacles and odds, “giants” and walled cities. God knowing that Joshua needed “a little reassurance” told him, “I will not leave you nor forsake you…Only be strong and very courageous…observe to do according to all the law…do not turn from it…meditate in it day and night…do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go,” (Joshua 1: 1-9).
Likewise, Jesus, in the light of his imminent crucifixion, understood that his disciples needed “a little reassurance”. Jesus assured them, “Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also,” (John 14:1-2).
If you are in need of a “little reassurance” right now I encourage you to turn to the word of God; and rest assured, you can take Him at his word.
Loren Hardin is a social worker with SOMC-Hospice and can be reached at (740) 357-6091 or at lorenhardin53@gmail.com. You can order Loren’s book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course”, at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.