Now is a good time for making plans, for lifestyle changes, starting over, finding new directions and developing as a human being. Now is a very good time for creating your own personal lifestyle and a life that you have chosen to live.

Let there always be cross-roads! Let me tell you what I think about cross-roads. There will always be new cross-roads. And I really hope they will be many. How boring life would be if there weren't any new directions to choose. We would just be walking straight ahead and never find out what else there is to know. We would never discover narrow paths that lead into something new and unexplored. If we always choose straight long road we will not develop as human beings. We will not realize all qualities and possibilities that we all possess.

My sons -- Tim and Mike -- were ecstatic; they'd finally reached final stage of Super Mario 2 and was now fighting evil Koopa when they were interrupted by a long, almost urgent, knock on front door. Pausing game, Tim, oldest at 11, got up and opened it. My older sister, Mary, looked rushed as she stood in doorway. "Quick -- where's your daddy?" Tim told Mike to run to back porch, where I was working, and get me. Hearing commotion, I was already heading back into house, but Mike met me in kitchen and walked with me into living room. "What's wrong, sis?" I asked hesitantly, not wanting to know answer. Since we'd moved next door to my parents, dad had contracted lung cancer -- and it was terminal. We feared any knock on door, thinking that, at any time, it could be news of his death. "Come with me," she said. "We need help getting Daddy back to bed." On way over to house, not much was actually said between us -- we both knew it was just a matter of time now, and all mama and rest of us were doing was trying to make him as comfortable as possible. As I entered house and made my way toward den in back -- a small, sunny room that daddy had built himself back in '78 -- I could still smell disinfectant we used to clean house a week earlier, before he'd been released from hospital. Entering den, I saw mama, who'd already been up for forty-eight hours straight, trying to help daddy to his feet; Susan, wonderful hospice worker who also doubled as Hinson family barber and hairdresser over previous weeks, getting his oxygen tank ready, and, of course, daddy himself, clad in his favorite blue pajamas. "Okay, Chuck," Mary directed, "you get daddy under arms and walk him backward toward bedroom. Mama, you stay in back and guide him there, and Susan and I will be on either side." "No," Mama corrected, "you let me by his side. I've been there for forty-five years, and I ain't budging now!" We grinned at that as I gently lifted him up. I was surprised at how light he was -- this once-strong bull of a man who could pull a 200-foot-deep well with just his bare strength and two 18-inch wrenches -- was now just eighty-five pounds. He also looked confused and scared. This man who, years before, had talked a mentally-ill woman out of stabbing him; who'd counseled so many just on basis of his moral standing, was now looking as around helplessly as if to say, "Wha ... what's happening to me?" I back-walked him to side of his bed and sat him down very delicately -- all while, talking to him. After I was sure he was all right -- and knowing I had to get back to fix supper for boys -- I had started to tell him "I love you, dad"! But, for a reason I'll never understand, "I'll miss you, dad" came out instead. He responded, ever so weakly, "I'll miss you too, son." I corrected myself and said, "Daddy, I love you." It was last time he would ever hear me say that.

AUGUST 24, 1990