How did I get here?

Have you ever stopped in the middle of your workday and wondered, How did I get here?

I can trace it back to a man named Lew.

He was my neighbor. A World War II veteran. Born the same year as my late father. He played in a jazz band at a local lovely dive, and I remember watching him with a nostalgia that included a love for my dad, his generation, and this great music.

Years later, I walking walking my schnoodle Amy and saw him outside with a rake—moving slowly, carefully—trying to keep up with a yard that had gotten ahead of him.

I brought Amy home, picked up another rake, and joined him.

At the time, it didn’t feel like anything significant. Just helping a neighbor.

But that small decision became a relationship. When Lew could no longer drive, I took him where he needed to go. We went to church together. When he became too frail to leave the house, I sat with him so he wouldn’t be alone.

We talked. We prayed. Sometimes we just sat in silence. And somewhere along the way, without realizing it, I was being changed. When Lew died, I didn’t just lose a neighbor. I lost someone who had quietly shown me what it means to be present for another person at the end of life.

That experience stayed with me.

It led me to become a hospice volunteer for the next 12 years. And today, I serve professionally as a Volunteer Coordinator—inviting others into that same kind of presence with patients and families during one of life’s most sacred seasons.

Looking back, it’s striking how something so small—picking up a rake—could shape the course of a life.

It makes me wonder how many of our “ordinary” moments are actually invitations.

If you look at your own path… can you trace it back to one?

About: Mark Morelli serves as manager of Volunteer Services at Heartland Hospice in Akron. Alongside this role, he continues his work as a freelance marketing writer and storyteller, helping organizations share meaningful stories.

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