“I want to go out swinging!” he announced with clarity and commitment.
The speaker—a man I’ll call Harvey—was a resident of the care unit of our retirement community whom I had met on a couple of previous occasions and spoken to briefly when visiting one of his neighbors. I had experienced him as somewhat depressed and struggling with the fairly recent loss of his wife of over fifty years. But I was glad to hear that it sounded like he planned to take advantage of the many opportunities Willow Valley offers.
I asked, “Tell me more about ‘going out swinging’. What would that look like?”
Obviously, I completely caught him off guard—something I guess I’m becoming known for!—because he looked at me with a rather bewildered stare, then finally blurted out, “What the he** do you mean?”
It occurred to me that this may have been a stock statement he made without having a clear picture of what he meant by it. After all, many of us haven’t put much thought into how we want to go out or even more important, what we want to leave behind, the impact we have had, or how we will be remembered. I don’t remember putting much thought into those questions myself prior to retiring.
Sorry to have accidentally put him on the spot, I awkwardly excused myself and proceeded to visit the resident I had come to see.
Several days later, I stopped in Harvey’s building again to check in on a woman who had lived on our floor but had landed in the care unit following a rather serious fall. As I passed by Harvey’s hallway, I considered stopping in to check on him but was somewhat reluctant because of his heated response to my innocent question. Would his reception be awkward, chilly, or potentially even worse?
After some thought, I reluctantly decided I would stop to visit him briefly and possibly apologize for questioning what he meant. To be honest, I didn’t feel a need to apologize but thought it might move us beyond his quick and curt response. It seemed worth taking the chance.
As I entered his room Harvey immediately gave me a slight smile which I hadn’t experienced previously. Before I could say anything, he jumped in with, “I have been thinking about the question you asked during your last visit.” He paused for effect. “I have decided that I want to start swinging a broom!”
Harvey allowed that to set for a few seconds as he checked out my reaction to his cryptic statement. I wasn’t sure the broom analogy was one bit clearer than the bat had been! He certainly could read my confused facial expression—and even seemed to enjoy it!
He then went on to explain that for several reasons he was completely “out of relationship” with all three of his siblings and their spouses. But after our conversation he had decided he wanted to “swing the broom” in an attempt to “clean out the issues and misunderstandings that gradually over time eroded our relationships.” He shared how reluctant and to some degree how scared he was to follow through on this desire, so much so that he actually wrote out what he was going to say during that first phone call!
“However,” (and his entire tone changed and his eyes lit up with that word), he reported that each call was received, by all three of his siblings, with varying levels of appreciation. Together they were exploring what needed to happen in order to create the honest dialogue needed to begin laying the groundwork for the healing process! Harvey went on to say it was certainly a work in progress, but he was very optimistic and grateful that I had asked the question and that he decided to start “swinging the broom”!
I must admit that thrown me a curveball! His response to my question was nowhere even close to what I was expecting—especially from him!
I caught up with Harvey again later and he told me that he and his siblings have a date set later this month when the two who live in state plan to visit here on campus and they will include the third sibling who lives on the West Coast in their discussions using FaceTime. But beyond that, the transformation in Harvey was astonishing to see. His entire demeanor was different. In the space of just a couple of weeks, Harvey has transitioned to a much more available and engaging person!
This encounter was obviously transformational to Harvey, but I was also deeply impacted by it. A few learnings or takeaways for me included:
When I choose to ask dialogue-starting questions, don’t begin to assume to ANY degree what a person’s response might be!
If the person’s response feels negative, give it some time and develop a creative exploratory follow-up visit.
To fully embrace this experience as encouragement to be more attentive to identifying and responding to unique opportunities to be “God-present” in my life.
And lastly to try once again to make contact myself with a relative who has not responded to numerous efforts on my part to discuss why he has chosen to withdraw from any contact.
Opportunities for connection and transformation—introducing yourself to a stranger, showing up again after a rebuff, being the first to reach out to heal a broken relationship—are happening all around us all the time, just waiting for us to activate them and I believe God’s role is not so much in setting up the opportunities as it is in constantly nudging and encouraging us to act on the infinite menu of options that we are always being presented. And the more we are able to accept God’s unlimited and unconditional love for us, the more secure we become and the more able and willing to take the risks necessary to respond to the opportunities that surround us each day.
These risk-taking experiences—even the seemingly small and “insignificant” ones—often take me to places I hadn’t considered or thought about as having the potential to impact my life journey, let alone to this degree. Each time it happens, it reconfirms my commitment to keep reaching out, to keep taking those risks, because you just never know where it will lead!
QUESTIONS FOR DEEPENING THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
- What would “going out swinging” look like for you? Have you given much thought to what you would like to leave behind?
- What would you do right now if you knew your time was limited? What has been holding you back?
- Is there anything you would like to “sweep up” from your past that you haven’t gotten around to?
- Are there relationships in your life that have foundered that you would like to repair?
- What is a possible first step to starting the reconnecting or reconciliation process?
- What kind of risks might you run by reaching out to people? Are the potential rewards worth the risks? Why or why not?
CHALLENGE: Identify one opportunity to take an emotional risk, even a small one, and follow through.
What was the result?
What did you learn?
Could you have done something better that you can implement in the future? No matter the outcome, commend yourself for having the courage to take the risk!
Banner photo by Josh Hemsley on unsplash.com
2 Responses
Terry,
Just before Rose and my 25 anniversary in 1996 2 of Roses sibblings had excluded her from their lives because Rose was still connecting to her mother. Her mother was a user of people and had no empathy for Rose and her situation in life (called her a bitter cripple). After her mother died in 2011 there was still no contact from these sibblings. In 2016 I talked with Rose and discussed her trying to touch base with her sibblings and she did by phone and seemed to have had been relieved of that burden knowing she needed to reconnect. Rose died in 2017 and all her sibblings came to see her in hospice just befor she lost consciousness. There is so much of this that goes on in families and I think sometimes never learn why it is happening nor do they try to turn things around. Your are a special person to have been made aware of that sneaky god giving you these opportunities to help people in this way!
Another good topic for a Sunday morning discussion group. Thank you.