In 2008, I was working full-time for Hospice of the Valley in North Scottsdale, Arizona. On the weekends, I also took private caregiving jobs through a small business of my own.
That's how I met John.
At first, I was simply his caregiver.
But sometimes people enter our lives as strangers and leave as something much more.
John was one of those people.
I cared for him every weekend, and as the months passed, I slowly began learning the story behind the man.
One Saturday, John asked me to sit down on the couch and watch a college football game with him.
So I did.
Afterward, I made his favorite supper—chicken and vegetables. I washed the dishes and was getting ready to leave when John stopped me.
“Jeffrey, sit down. I want to talk to you about something.”
I sat beside him.
He paused for a moment.
Then he looked at me.
“Jeffrey, I just want to open up. I feel sad, lonely, and empty inside. I need someone to listen to me.”
I told him, “I'm here for you.”
John opened a photo album.
Inside were photographs from his lifetime—his family, his younger years, and his military service.
John had served during World War II, including the Burma campaign. He told me he had been shot down twice, had survived being a prisoner of war, and eventually rose to the rank of colonel.
But as we turned the pages and reached the photographs of his family, something changed.
Tears began running down his face.
John pulled one photograph from the album and clutched it in his hand.
I put my hand on his shoulder.
“I'm here for you,” I told him. “From the beginning of this journey until the end.”
And John began telling me the story behind those tears.
John grew up in a family that didn't have much.
He told me his father had built their home using wood from railroad cars. Times could be difficult, but his mother and father were always there for him.
Beside their home stood a large oak tree.
Whenever life became difficult, John's father would walk outside, kneel beneath that tree, and pray to God.
Sometimes little John would kneel beside him.
As John grew older, the oak tree became his safe place too.
Eventually, he left home and entered the military.
He traveled the world.
He survived war.
He survived being shot down.
He survived captivity.
John told me that during some of his darkest moments as a prisoner of war, he would picture that oak tree.
When he felt like giving up, he remembered his father kneeling beneath it.
And he would remind himself:
God is with me until the end.
John survived.
But survival had come with a cost.
His military career had taken him around the world, while his wife and children were often left behind.
Years passed.
Relationships fractured.
John told me that about ten years earlier, his children had tried to reconnect with him. They had given him their contact information.
He didn't contact them.
But he kept the address.
By the time I met John, his days of playing golf were behind him.
He lived in a beautiful Scottsdale condominium overlooking a golf course, and golf had once been an important part of his life.
For years, Saturday mornings meant breakfast at the country club overlooking the 18th hole.
So we continued his tradition.
Every Saturday morning, we would get up and go to breakfast.
The dining room had large sliding doors overlooking the course. From John's table, the 18th hole looked close enough to reach out and touch.
Those breakfasts became more than meals.
John talked.
I listened.
We laughed.
Sometimes we cried.
And little by little, I got to know the man behind the military uniform, the rank, and the accomplishments.
Then his health began deteriorating.
John had been receiving palliative care, but eventually his condition became serious enough for hospice.
One evening while I was helping him get ready for bed, John opened a cabinet.
He handed me an old piece of paper.
It contained the address his children had given him years earlier.
He looked at me.
“Do you think we can find my kids?”
I didn't make him a promise I couldn't keep.
“I can try,” I told him. “But John, I don't know how they'll respond.”
He understood.
The door had been closed for a long time.
But now John wanted to open it.
His health continued declining.
John wasn't eating enough, and his doctor discussed placing a feeding tube through his nose.
John was frightened.
“I want to live, Jeffrey. I don't want to give up.”
I told him the decision belonged to him and that whatever he chose, I would be there.
When the day of the procedure came, John asked me to go with him.
So I did.
We sat together in that hospital room waiting for the doctor.
It felt like an eternity.
Then John said something to me that I would never forget.
“Jeffrey, when I die, I want you to remember me as a man who never gave up.”
He reminded me that he had been shot down twice and had survived as a prisoner of war.
Then he said:
“If you ever see an oak leaf, remember me.”
He told me again about the tree beside his childhood home.
He told me about his father kneeling beneath it.
He told me how, during the war, when everything seemed hopeless, he would picture that tree.
The oak tree represented faith.
It represented home.
It represented survival.
And now John was giving that symbol to me.
After the procedure, I returned to my regular job during the day.
But John's condition continued getting worse.
After work, I would check on him.
Eventually, I began sleeping on his couch some nights so I could make sure he was okay before leaving for work the next morning.
And I kept thinking about that piece of paper.
John wanted to find his children.
So I sat at his kitchen table and wrote a letter.
I explained who I was.
I told them I was caring for their father.
And I told them he was dying.
Then I waited.
A response came from his daughter.
She hadn't known how sick her father was.
I explained that he was now on hospice and wasn't doing well.
Then I told her what I believed was in John's heart:
He wanted to see his children one more time.
She asked me what they could do.
I told her:
“His wish is to see you.”
She told me she would get the family together and come to Scottsdale.
I didn't tell John.
I had something else in mind.
John experienced what caregivers sometimes call a rally—a sudden burst of energy near the end of life.
To John, it seemed as though maybe he was getting better.
But after so many years working around death and dying, I understood what might be happening.
Time was becoming precious.
That Saturday morning, I said:
“John, I want to take you to the 18th hole one more time.”
He agreed.
I helped him into his wheelchair, and we went to the country club.
People there had known John for years.
We sat at his familiar table overlooking the 18th hole.
The large doors were closed.
John didn't know that on the other side of those doors stood his family.
His children.
The people he had once turned away.
The people he now desperately wanted to see.
I looked at John and told him:
“Dreams can come true if you leave the door open. Because when you believe, you're already halfway there.”
John reached for my hand.
“Thank you, Jeffrey, for being here with me. I hope you're here with me in the end.”
Then I told him:
“I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it?”
“On the count of three, I'm going to turn your wheelchair around.”
I started counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
I turned John's wheelchair around.
The doors opened.
His family was standing there.
For a moment, John couldn't speak.
Then the tears came.
His children walked toward him.
“Dad, it's been a long time. But we're here now.”
The man who had survived war, captivity, and decades of separation broke down and cried.
The door had finally opened.
And his family walked through it.
After breakfast, I stepped away.
This wasn't my moment.
It belonged to John and his children.
I told them to call me whenever they needed me.
During the days that followed, they received something that ten years of separation had nearly taken away forever:
Time.
Time to talk.
Time to forgive.
Time to remember.
Time to say goodbye.
Three days before John died, I sat beside his bed.
He wanted to talk one more time.
He told me:
“I'll always remember the people who gave to me. The people who showed up. And the people who were there with me in the end.”
That night, I went home and wrote in my journal:
Dreams are possible. But first, you have to believe—in yourself and in others.
That Friday night, on a hot Scottsdale evening, John died.
His family was with him.
The following week, I attended his funeral.
I quietly sat in a back pew.
John's family noticed me.
They came over.
“Jeffrey, why are you sitting back here? We consider you family.”
So I walked forward and sat with them.
John received military honors.
I listened as the service celebrated the life of a man I had come to know far beyond his rank or uniform.
Afterward, I stood to leave.
His family asked me where I was going.
“My time has come,” I told them. “I did what I came here to do. Your dad was just as important as anybody else I've ever cared for. And you are important too. My mission is complete.”
I started walking toward the door.
Then John's daughter grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
She placed something in my hand.
John's military dog tags.
“Dad wanted you to have these,” she told me. “You made his dream come true. And when things got bad, you never left his side.”
For a moment, I didn't know what to say.
I hadn't entered John's life expecting anything in return.
I had simply tried to use the gift God had given me—to be there for another human being when he needed someone.
I walked outside toward my car.
Near the mortuary stood a large oak tree.
Then I looked down beside my car.
There was an oak leaf.
I stopped.
I remembered John sitting beside me.
I remembered his father kneeling beneath that tree.
I remembered the prisoner of war who carried the image of that oak tree inside his mind when he needed the strength not to give up.
And I remembered John's words:
“If you ever see an oak leaf, remember me.”
I picked it up.
And I remembered.
From My Journal
Not everybody who enters your life will remain for the entire book.
Some people are given a chapter.
Some are given a page.
And some are given only a moment.
But a moment can change a life.
I believe everybody has a special and unique gift to offer this world in their own way.
Sometimes all another human being needs is for somebody to leave the door open.
Because as long as that door remains open, there is still a possibility.
A possibility to forgive.
A possibility to come home.
A possibility to say the words you waited too long to say.
A possibility to love one more time.
And a possibility to believe.
The door is always open—if you believe.
— Jeffrey Badders
