I spent a good part of one day with a man whose family had asked me to speak with him about his Advanced Directives. Not to do them but to re-do them; to reflect the newest current circumstances of his life.

Our conversation began with my asking him about his life. He had known cognitive memory issues some of what he went on to tell me may not have been chronologically correct or even true, but it didn't matter. What mattered was, every time he would turn his face and look in my eyes, he was there with me, and the rest of the world was not. And almost every time that happened, it was because I had asked him about something that struck a chord. He would look at me, with a few tears in his eyes, and give me the sweetest, most gentle, little smile before beginning to answer.

A Baptist minister for 37 years before retiring almost 20 years prior to this conversation, he was allowed, under very unusual circumstances, to continue on as a member of the same congregation in the same church where he had been a minister for so many years. He simply moved from the pulpit to the pew. His relationship with God is long standing, strong and very present in his life.

I asked him what the hardest part was for him when contemplating his own death and he said, “Hoping I have made a positive difference in someone's life.”

As his story unfolded and he recalled all the families he had accompanied through what he and his family were now facing; when he recounted meetings around kitchen tables to plan funerals for beloved parishioners'; when he spoke of his own son dying at the age of 42 and his granddaughter being taken in a car accident at 16 and his mother and his grandmother and his devotion to always trying to be the best man he could be as a way to honor all their memories, all the while stopping to wipe away tears that kept slipping from his eyes, I found myself wondering how in the world he could question whether or not he had made a difference. Because all I could see, was the difference he was making in that moment, in my life, and I'd only known him for an hour.

I asked him if it might be possible that he has absolutely done all of that, and more? That he had clearly made a difference in so many lives. And that perhaps, just perhaps, instead of praying that he's made a difference, he could pray for being allowed to continue to make a difference in all the good ways until his final breath. 

And then he truly wept. 

And we held hands and within moments we were laughing together through shared tears; and a new friendship.

Why is it so hard for us to see that we are enough, just like we are; and so easy for us to question whether we are doing enough, being enough, or providing enough?

When I worked in the cancer center, where this took place, every day I would watch a dedicated staff provide care with genuine compassion, strength of character and thoughtful expressions of love. We all made magical moments of joy in the lives of people who had been stopped in their tracks or completely derailed by a 

cancer diagnosis. 

And I am reminded through cards like one I got some months ago that said, “I don't know where we are going with this cancer, but I do know that every day I am in a better place because of all of you.”. 

I'm with him. I, too, am in a better place because of all of you. If you work with cancer patients, whatever your role, please don't ever question that you make a difference. Please. Because you do. All of you, who work in medicine, make a difference in more lives than you can possibly ever know. Please never stop.