Finding a Purpose

“Ollie, will you shut that thing off? I’m trying to watch the game.”

“Can’t hear you, Bill, I’m vacuuming!”

My parents’ bickering drove me crazy. They’d been married over 50 years and loved each other deeply. But Dad was fighting a recurrence of prostate cancer and Mom had just finished her treatments for breast cancer. Neither felt well, and Dad, recently retired from his insurance business, was bored. Mom mostly just cleaned.

“Pat, can you think of any place where I might volunteer?” Dad asked me.

“Have you thought about Orange Christian Services?” I said. OCS was a social service agency that provided food, clothing, medication and other help to needy people in my hometown.

“I’ll think about it,” Dad mumbled.

A week later, Dad was firmly ensconced as an interviewer at OCS, talking to the people who came for help to determine their needs. Dad was a people person with a great sense of humor. When I went to visit one day, I heard his distinctive laugh all the way down the hall. He made the people he interviewed laugh as well, despite their circumstances. “I need a purpose in this world, Pat,” he told me. “I think I’ve found it.”

Dad went to OCS four days a week, during which Mom vacuumed to her heart’s content.