Slice of Life: The little old man in the hospital bed

What is a slice of life? A glimpse, a moment, a glance at a segment of a well-lived life? As I’ve written this column for a few months now, I’ve covered many different aspects of life. But this past month I’ve been thinking often about what it means to have lived a “well-lived life.”

According to a Harvard research study that followed participants for more than 80 years, the key to longevity and happiness, my own interpretation of what a well-lived life might contain, is joy. The outcome of this research showed that while good genes are nice, having joy is better for longevity. The longest living, happiest participants were not necessarily the wealthiest or the most successful in business. They were, however, across the board, the happiest and most content in their lives and had the most joy.

As a social worker, I was amazed how often this concept came up in my work with Aging Services. The clients I worked with who maintained joy in their lives, no matter the situation, fared better than those who responded with anger and frustration as they aged. For most of those able to maintain joy, they had lived a life that was rewarding and had many happy memories to draw upon. They had lived a well-lived life.

Psychology Today studied this question and concluded that those who felt they had lived a well-lived life defined it as doing what brings them happiness, setting goals and meeting those goals, and making a positive impact on the world, which enables them to leave a positive legacy behind. So, according to Psychology Today, a person’s ability to experience a well-lived life would mean they set goals, reached those goals, and left behind a positive legacy, which could be interpreted in many ways.

Biblically speaking, a well-lived life could be defined as following the Ten Commandments as found in Exodus 20:2-17. Once a person realizes the Commandments are a gift from God to help define a life free from stress, sin and lawlessness, they are able to expand the joy in their lives without worry, because God has their back. And God intends for His people to live with joy. Psalm 32:11 reads, “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you, righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” When you read through these verses, you quickly realize that joy is not a suggestion for the believer, but a command. And joy, as we learned from the 80-year-long Harvard study, is key to a life of longevity and happiness.

You may ask why I’ve been focused on a well-lived life and what that means. In June, we celebrate fathers. And this June, I will celebrate my father in more than one way. I will celebrate on June 19 that he was my father. I will focus on good memories and celebrate each one. On June 28, I will celebrate what would have been his 87th birthday, a day we had planned to barbecue and gather around him with joy. But on June 3, we had to say goodbye. We don’t get to live forever, and his day arrived. On June 23, we will celebrate his life together as a family, five days before he would have been 87.

For the past month, we visited him as often as we could. It was hard to watch him drift away day by day into the little old man in the hospital bed. Toward the end, he was unable to communicate with us, but we believe he knew we were there. So we shared stories of his life and took time to think back over the life he had lived. We reminisced about the business he built and the family he created. We shared stories with humor and joy in them. And yes, we sat by his bed and laughed. Sometimes we cried. We talked about the dreams he had and how he accomplished them. He wanted to be a pilot, to travel the world. We discussed his impact on his part of the world and stories of the legacy he will leave behind. We talked about his faith and how he had raised us to believe he was headed to Heaven with Jesus when the time came to go.

May his days there be filled with joy. My father was a good man. He was not always the best father, but perhaps I was not always the best daughter either, but he was the one God placed me with. I will always be grateful for the time I had with him and the time I had to say goodbye.

My father has passed on, as many fathers have before him. He did so after having lived a “well-lived life,” which makes it just a little easier to let him go. This is the cycle of life.

Next Sunday is Father’s Day. How will you celebrate? Is it time to pick up the phone and make a long overdue call before you can’t make a call? Or maybe you’ll give an extra big hug to a father in your life? However you reach out, whatever the choice, make sure it has enough joy in it for a well-lived life.

Shalom.

Chelle is a recovering social worker who currently works as a licensed massage therapist at Cherry Creek Myotherapy. She moved to Montana with her husband David and two pups, Lucas and Turner, where they seek “the quiet life” amid new adventures.