A Life Built on Self-Reliance
Some people hire out every task and settle into a job for life. That’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I’m not built that way. I’ve always been driven to do things for myself, starting from the time my father, a self-taught carpenter, had me help build onto our small cabin deep in the Pennsylvania woods.
I decided early on that I could either chase a high income to pay others for every repair, or I could spend my life learning skills, finding enjoyment, and saving money by taking care of the expensive work myself.
Yes, I made mistakes and bought tools only for single uses, but the ability to overhaul a car engine or fix a furnace on a cold weekend was priceless.
Master of Many Skills
I learned to repair my own cars and eventually became a paid field mechanic for large trucks, draglines, and bulldozers.
That was before the PC was invented and I became a full time writer with experience in a dozen areas to back up my writing.
My hands-on independence extended to my passions.
I loved the water, so in Boston I learned to sail, reading charts, navigating, predicting weather from minute to minute, and memorizing tide tables.
I became skilled enough to be in demand as a pilot and helmsman for expensive yachts in Boston and the North Atlantic.
One weekend, I was asked to help sail a quarter-million-dollar racing yacht recently bought from the Coast Guard.
During a rough passage to the Cape Cod Canal, an amateur crewman panicked. I grabbed the wheel just as the owner came on deck and took charge, and for the next two hours, I was his essential hand until we reached calmer waters. From then on, I was his go-to pilot – and it didn’t cost me a penny to play with that yacht for years.
That philosophy of self-sufficiency permeated everything: I taught myself to be a locksmith, working as such for my first university and later a detective agency.
For decades, I cooked every meal at home.
Having worked in restaurants, I wouldn’t eat out, and knowing what went into prepared supermarket food, I avoided processed ingredients.
I bought flour by the bag, yeast by the pound, and hadn’t touched a bagged loaf in decades. I even used a sous vide oven to tenderize the toughest cuts of meat.
My entire life was defined by competence and control.
The Final Challenge
Now, I have trouble getting from a recliner into a wheelchair.
Today, a young woman—practically a girl, though very competent and smart—had to help take off my shirt so she could wash my back, a place I can no longer reach.
I can still write, but that is nearly all.
Can you imagine the difficulty I had in accepting hospice care?
For years, I had determined that if any possible way presented itself, I would never go into a nursing home.
A New Definition of Self-Reliance
I always thought hospice care meant a special facility where you went to live out your final days.
I’m sure many people in this position deeply resent having to rely on others to do almost everything for them.
Then, my friend K visited me in the hospital. She told me how her mother, miserable in a nursing home with a broken back and cancer, was brought home after K found a good hospice agency.
They cover five counties in West Central PA, moved her back home, installed a hospital bed with a crane, and provided scheduled and on-call care.
That single conversation changed everything. This wasn’t a surrender to an institution; it was a final, intelligent choice to secure my independence at home. The philosophy remains the same, only the method has changed: finding the most competent way to navigate this final challenge, even if it means accepting help. My self-reliance continues.
To Be Continued:
Part of John McCormick’s “Last Deadline” series — reflections from a journalist writing through his final chapter.
Explore more from John McCormick and his books.
Follow the whole series:
- Hospice, The Last DEADLINE of a Correspondent
- A Correspondent’s Notes: Day Two in Hospice
- Hospice Notes Day 3–4: Pain, Swelling, and the Relief of Oxygen
- Hospice Notes, Week Two: Pain, Cookies, and Letting Go of a Library
- Another Day in Hospice — A Good One This Time
- Hospice Notes: Good Days, Bad Days, and Broken Pipes
- The Mechanic, The Sailor, The Journalist, and The New Definition of Self-Reliance
- Dispatch From the Frontier: The Mechanics of the Long Sleep
- Good Days, Bad Days, and the “Hospice Paradox”
Editor’s Note: John wrote all of this, with some AI assistance in editing/spelling and pictures.
