I really considered saying nothing this holiday season because it’s been really a difficult year
However, I’ve always been quite transparent with my readers, so I invite you to listen while I talk to myself.
Do you talk to yourself?
Sometimes I have to.
You see, 2023 has been one devil of a year.
Let me give you just a few lowlights.
- I’ve had Covid twice and RSV once. Yes, I took the vaccines, which is probably why it didn’t kill me.
- I have a very close family member with horribly debilitating long Covid, and he has had it for almost a year. Not only can he not work, he can’t even stay awake through a meal. Forget doing anything enjoyable. If anyone dares to say anything about how Covid isn’t real or long-Covid is just laziness, I’ll not only ban you from my blog, I’ll curse you with fleas to your armpits and private region for the duration of what I hope is your very long flea-ridden life.
- A young family member took her own life after being bullied at school. And yes, the school knew about the bullying and DID NOTHING. Not only do I remain furious, but the family is beyond devastated. I can’t even imagine Christmas at their home right now.
I just can’t even…
- A month later, my closest family member, other than my immediate family, died unexpectedly when I was quite ill with RSV. Cheryl, my sister-cousin.
- I can’t even begin to explain the huge hole in my heart. She’s the last of my generation. Saying goodbye was both extremely difficult and very cathartic. No mixed emotions here. Being the last one standing does a number on your psyche.
- Then, my house was struck by lightning. This is beginning to sound like a really bad country song isn’t it?
- I’m not even going to begin to list everything that got fried. Let’s just say it would be easier to list what wasn’t fried and even that list is dwindling. We’ve become good friends with the electrician, is all that I can say.
Ok, enough of that. See, I’m already talking to myself. I’ve been doing a lot of talking and swearing and muttering under my breath this year.
I truly thought that losing 22 people to Covid, including my husband’s best friend and some very close family members over the past 2-3 years, was the bottom of that barrel. Covid isn’t “over,” but not as many people are perishing now. Or maybe we aren’t counting anymore.
I also lost four very close family members in another devastating event during that time.
Anyway, I thought “everything” would be better by now. Less trying. Fewer disasters. At some point, surely, the worst would have to be behind us.
We can’t even get past one issue or challenge before the next one arrives, screaming, “Hold my beer!” Hey, at least the tornado bounced OVER my house.
We aren’t discussing the flood, though. We were spared this year, but so many weren’t. People around here are building arks.
And the floors. If anyone even mentions floors to me, I’m liable to launch either into an apoplectic fit or a sobbing breakdown. We are now on the 7th round of packing up and moving around the house from room to room to remediate floor issues. Yes, 7. That’s not a typo.
Some days, we have multiple disasters or multiple work crews stepping over each other here while I’m trying to work.
I don’t want to leave you with the idea that everything has been bad this year because that isn’t the case, but the year has been pretty much saturated with ongoing issues and disasters.
I was glad to be just about to usher 2023 out the door with a swift goodbye, but 2023 wasn’t done with me yet.
As I watch my social media feed, I’ve realized that many other people are experiencing this same thing – which is why I’ve decided to invite you to follow along as I talk to myself.
Meet Grinch
This brings us to Grinch.
Meet grinch.
Grinch looks like this, at least at my house this year.
After electronics take a huge power surge, like a lightning strike, some electronic parts and appliances fail immediately, and others fail more slowly. It’s like they are stressed, but they don’t give up the ghost right away.
After the initial hit (while we were traveling AND had Covid), I paid to repair the heat pump, which serves as a combined heating and AC unit.
Well, it turned out that I was throwing money away because right after Thanksgiving, we started having issues again.
So, after several service calls and a few parts, two very expensive pieces of the unit failed one after the other.
We were now facing the “fix or replace” decision.
I don’t need a stress test because receiving the quote for the repair started heart palpitations, followed by the quote for the new unit. Since I lived through that, I’ll probably live to see the century mark.
The new unit comes with a warranty. Parts and labor don’t, yet cost two-thirds as much as the new unit.
Couldn’t get parts for six weeks, best case.
And – we were freezing because we had no heat. It was a 4-quilt, 3-cat night, and I was still cold. The good news is that we had hot water, because I really needed hot showers.
So, the decision was made, and the installation of a new unit was scheduled for December 21st. Merry Christmas. Well, those aren’t exactly the words I said.
However, the day before the installation, the experienced technician we really had confidence in quit. My anxiety level leaped right off the charts. I swear, the Grinch has secretly moved in.
The following day, the installation was on once again, staffed with other people, but everything had to be torn out first. The floor crew was here, too. Four trucks in the driveway and one on the street. I had to go sit in the car for some silence.
Regardless, I could hear my checkbook screaming.
Yes, the Grinch visited and stole the Christmas spirit for a month or so.
When the crew finished installing the new unit, they hauled the broken parts away, hopefully removing Grinch, too.
Thank goodness for multiple credit cards is all that I can say.
I’ve had to tell myself to take a deep breath and just breathe more than once.
So, now that I’ve told you about that evil Grinch, let me tell you what’s NOT wrong, and what I did to combat Grinch.
Grinch can put a huge damper on things, but Grinch CANNOT steal everything.
Holiday Spirit
Whether you celebrate Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, or something else, the holiday season embodies a spirit of celebration, love, positivity, and generosity.
Gifts and colorful decorations remind people that others care.
Those who can, do for others who cannot.
I’ve been that single Mom with no help, so I stuck some cash in an envelope and gifted our favorite server – who is also a single young mom whose mother died.
My first thought was that I couldn’t afford it, because, you know – evil Grinch and the heat pump. But guess what? Trust me, that heat pump cost so much that the cash I put in that envelope for her isn’t going to matter one iota. Not to me. However, it did matter to her.
She exclaimed, joyfully, “Oh, now I can get my daughter a stocking.” I wished I had put more in there.
At least I HAVE a house, and I CAN replace the heat pump, and I’m NOT debilitated by Covid. I’m also NOT sleeping on the sidewalk in the cold or begging for food for my dog. (Yes, I bought the dog food and gave the guy something for himself too. Yes, I also know it might have been a scam, but it also might not have been. If it was a scam, he deserves an Oscar. I’d rather risk the $ than risk allowing another human and his dog to starve in the cold.)
There’s something else too.
My path through the valley of the Shadow of the Grinch is strewn with boulders, but so far, I’ve been able to navigate them. Alright, I have a few bruises on my shins and my credit cards have been brutalized, but I’ve survived.
This is NOT a life sentence of cold and misery. I’m not condemned.
Ancestral Life
Historian Travis Chumley posts daily photos of life in Appalachia from the first half of the 20th century on Facebook. These photos are of common people – workers, miners, farmers, women keeping house, and children.
Their everyday lives.
These are the lives of my ancestors on my father’s side.
My ancestors were poor, and some lived in grinding poverty – the kind that never leaves your soul.
I’ve been spared and remain spared that fate.
I searched Travis’s feed for both my family surnames and their locations, by county. I also searched the UNT Library collection, here, too, along with the Library of Congress photos.
Let me share this part of the story with you.
Harlan County, 1946
My grandfather lived in a shack up on Black Mountain in Harlan County, Kentucky.
The shacks were numbered. They lived in shack #74 for years, as listed on their child’s death certificate and the census.
Moonshine still – 1940s in Claiborne County.
My grandfather, along with his eldest son made moonshine for the miners. Their young daughters delivered it in a wagon during Prohibition. Yes, most of this family line suffered from alcoholism, a “gift” that descended generationally.
Miner’s home in 1946 in Bell Co. KY. This is one of the nicer homes.
Kerosene lamps. String beans on a thread were how beans were dried, which you can see at right, and newspapers served for wallpaper and insulation. These shacks were people’s homes but were not insulated. Snow drifted in through the cracks in the roof and windows. One family told me that their puppy froze one night, in bed with their three sons.
Bell County, Kentucky, 1946…
Mrs. Leanore Miller, widow of a miner, with a picture of her husband. She said, “there’s more widows and orphans in this holler than men at work”. Kentucky Straight Creek Coal Company, Four Mile, Bell County, Kentucky…
Source
National Archives Russell Lee photographer
Life was unrelenting, and there was no avenue of escape.
Wash day about 1920. Water was carried from the spring. Often clothes were boiled because they were worn for so long between washes. Notice the washboard. The Claxton land still had remnants of wash day down along the creek, long abandoned when we found it in the 1980s.
Everything was done wearing those long skirts, even in the heat of summer. Many women died when their skirts caught fire.
Walking the coffin up the mountainside.- 1940.
Medicine was scarce, and people were often afraid to turn to doctors. Not only was medicine unfamiliar, many women wouldn’t allow a man to treat them.
Death was common. Coffins were handmade in the barn, neighbors dug the grave, and family members were buried in cemeteries “up the hill.” My great-grandparents were buried on the same day, some say together, in the flu epidemic of 1918. They put one body in the barn to wait for the other person to die.
If you didn’t have medicine as a resource, then you were left with prayer. People went to church in wagons. The lucky ones got to ride in trucks like this lady in Springdale, TN, in 1940.
My cousin first took me “up the mountain” in the back of his truck that looked a lot like this, except without the roof.
Oklahoma in 1895.
After Tennessee and sometimes Missouri, the next frontier for many was Oklahoma and Texas. The government divided much of the tribal land and granted individual allotments to Native families. That started the next land rush of settlers who were eager to purchase land for pennies on the dollar.
Some made the journey with their entire family and belongings in a Conestoga wagon, but many of the Native people who were forced onto the Trail of Tears decades earlier, walking during the winter, didn’t make it.
A hitchhiking family waiting along the highway in Macon, Georgia, in 1937. The father repairs sewing machines, lawnmowers, etc. He is leaving Macon, where a license is required for such work (twenty-five dollars), and heading back for Alabama.
Source
Farm Security Administration Dorothea Lange photographer
Everything that family owned was in those bags.
Depression-era home, Wayne County, Michigan 1937
This isn’t in the South, but many people from Appalachia went north seeking work in factories or on farms.
1937 was the year my grandfather’s youngest child starved to death up on Black Mountain.
West Virginia 1937
Life was tough, and many were impoverished. This young woman is picking alongside the road for pieces of coal that fell off of trucks. Some scavenged along train tracks for the same reason. Coal and wood were both used to heat homes.
Walking to school, 1921
Notice that this girl is wearing a coat and hat but is barefoot. My aunt told me that they had one pair of shoes that the children shared for “good” and everyone was mad when the foot of the largest child stretched the shoes out. They went everyplace barefoot.
Clothes were shared in hand-me-down fashion from child to child until nothing was left. Scraps and remnants were often remade and repurposed.
Tennessee, March 1936…
Mother and daughter of an impoverished family of nine… FSA photographer Carl Mydans found them living in a field just off US Route 70, near the Tennessee River.
Source
Farm Security Administration
This mother’s skirt is made from a coarse feed sack, and her top appears to be a sweater in tatters. The baby doesn’t look much better. This is what hopelessness looks like.
I can’t help but wonder what happened to these people.
Scott’s Run, West Virginia. Miner’s child.
This boy was digging coal from mine refuse on the road side. The picture was taken December 23, 1936 on a cold day; Scott’s Run was buried in snow. The child was barefoot and seemed to be used to it. He was a quarter mile from his home.
Source
Records of the Work Projects Administration Lewis Hine photographer
This is no life to aspire to.
Many tried to leave, or did leave, but often what awaited them wasn’t any better.
Florida, 1939
“Buddy,” youngest child of migrant packinghouse worker from Tennessee, sitting on the only bed for six people, which is rolled out on the ground at night and pushed into the back during the day. Belle Glade, Florida.
Source
Farm Security Administration (Marion Post Walcott photographer
I don’t even have any commentary about this one except to say thank the Lord because there but for the grace of God and some amount of good luck goes every family.
Claiborne County outhouse in field. Clark, Joe. [Outhouse in an Open Field], photograph, undated, crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.
Photograph of a wooden outhouse in an open field. A line of fence posts can be seen in the middle ground of the photo while trees are scattered throughout the background.
I grew up on a farm, and yes, we had an outhouse, but by that time, it was only used for emergencies.
In the south, everyone had outhouses. Many were still in use when I first visited Claiborne County in the 1980s.
Attitude Shift
All of this makes my first-world problems look privileged and trivial by comparison.
If my ancestors can and did survive that as routine life, I can assuredly survive this. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been whining, grousing and complaining so much.
This is why I talk to myself. To remind myself that:
- My country isn’t under attack.
- My friends and family aren’t starving.
- We have clothes and food.
- There’s no outhouse outside, because there’s plumbing inside, including multiple bathrooms.
- We don’t have to find wood or pick coal from the side of the road for heat.
- I have shoes.
- My children had shoes, and they didn’t have to share them.
- I may have to pack up my belongings and shuffle them around my house to fix the floors, repeatedly, but I have more than a few suitcases of belongings.
- And I have floors – that I don’t have to sleep on.
- I’m no longer that single mother trying to figure out how to acquire the things that I know my kids asked Santa for.
- I no longer need to ration food from Friday to Friday to have enough to get to the next payday.
- I no longer have to live in terror of any “strange” noise my car makes, knowing I can’t afford to fix it.
- I have the ability to alleviate some of that suffering and those challenges for others through various means.
Grinch, I hate to tell you this, but you’re outta here. You’ve been evicted – run right out of town!
This is a Grinch-free zone now!
My Wishes for You
The best that life has to offer
Tranquility.
Kindness
Safety.
Wisdom
The wisdom to know when to walk away
Time
Time to do what you need to do
Time to do what you want to do
May your lightning bolt
Be one of awakening
Freedom from fear
Warmth
Family
Someone who loves you
Unconditionally
Loving another
Unconditionally
Fur family who loves you,
And that you love
Hope
The ability to help others,
Change lives,
Make a difference
The willingness to reach out with love
The desire to give
Motivation
Grace
Gratitude
Both given and received
The satisfaction of bringing joy to others
Great gifts,
But most of all
I wish you peace
And Inspiration
That you may find your Calling
Or it finds you
And know that you are doing the work of the Divine
Not just for this day
Or month
But until the end of time
Happy Holidays, and no Grinch!
Share this:
Discover more from DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Inspirational. Thank you & best wishes. John Fletcher, UK
Thank you for sharing. I have also found solace in difficult times by remembering ancestors who went through my same difficulties except greatly magnified. This year I have come to realize that one of my Callings is to help find ancestors for African-Americans. It is in no small part an atonement for the actions of my enslaving ancestors. I also have been very active in volunteer work this year. Today I realized that for the first time in years I do not have the Grinch spirit at Christmas. Wishing you all the best for the coming year …
Started and had to finish reading at 1:00 am. Had a nap in my reclining lift chair with heat and massage. Now it is time to go to bed with my CPAP. Your “essay” brought back many memories from childhood. And later. I and many more would not be old and reasonably healthy without “modern medicine”. Thanks to all our ancestors for surviving long enough for us to be created!
Life sure was hard, we’re so lucky, thanks for the story.
Love the way you banished the grinch!! Good job. I need to work on that right now. 2023 has been my year from hell. The grinch has been sitting on my shoulder the last few weeks. Your article has given me the conviction that I can banish him from my life too!
Thinking back to my ancestors, no Cossacks riding through my house, no getting kicked out of my shtetl, no nazis goose stepping their way through our streets and no concentration camps. What the hell am I crying about? I’m alive and regaining my health. 2024 is going to be a good year.
Thank you!!
A lovely Christmas gift. Thank you.
May the New Year be far less Grinchy.
I’m right with you on that one.
I’m so sorry for the losses you have suffered and the difficulties you are having. Thank you for this moving and inspiring post.
I’m also an Appalachian descendant and although my maternal grandmother’s family were poor, there were so many in Appalachia that were going through so much more. A lotta ups and downs this year, but this Christmas will be the first time I will not be sharing the holiday with my family in over 45 years due to a recent exposure to Covid (luckily, no symptoms so far). So I’m kicking 2023 to the curb and hope 2024 is a more happier and prosperous year for you. Hang in there, Roberta!
Thank you Roberta and Merry Christmas. May 2024 find us all in better fortune. You pull out memories long forgotten, perhaps suppressed. My grandfather, a coal miner from Scott Co. VA, lost a foot and part of his leg to diabetes. Older and retired, you would think he would have soured on life, but he put a ad in the paper and found a man that had lost the opposite foot and they bought a pair of shoes together and shared the one they couldn’t use with each other. Each year, they would alternate buying and mailing each other. He would tell me, “it’s not so bad, he likes the same kind of shoe I do.” They raised 12 kids with that attitude.
And this is what gives us resilience.
I’ve been watching those Chumley photos, and if I haven’t spotted a relative in the shots of Claiborne County it’s not because I haven’t tried. Roberta, I do hope that your run of hard luck is over and 2024 will be a better year for you.
Thanks for not letting the Grinch and the Dark Side win in your life. I sure hope those horrible moments in time, frozen in those photos for eternity, was just that, a horrible moment. Merry Christmas.
Well said and a reminder that we are blessed, even though our trials and heartaches seem overwhelming at times. 🎄Merry Christmas 🎄
As usual, a very thoughtful and humbling dialogue Roberta. Yes, the Grinch is gone, time to count our blessings. Merry Christmas from Scotland..
Roberta I don’t know how we survive the things we have to. It doesn’t really help to know there are people in Gaza worse off than we are—but I go there. I think of Out of Africa and awfulizing. I go across the street and visit my 99 year old neighbor who still leads the Altar Society at her church.
I think of loss but like you, I realize the way yo make it through is to give to others. So I thank you for your gift of sharing and how next year is less grinchy. You inspire us all.
A couple of years ago I challenged myself to find out all I could about my 2nd great grandmother. When life gets me down I think of her. https://wheatonwood.com/2022/02/28/my-woman-warrior-pioneer-mother-catherine-adeline-stewart-murphy-mosier/
My sincere hope is you keeping finding was to make it through. Ram Dass said in his book How Can I Help? We are all trying to make it through a crazy situation. Hold on tight!
I just think knowing we are a community and have a community is very helpful. The concept of community has changed.
Thank You, for reminding me of all I have. We too, have had one thing after another the past two years – but nothing as hard as what you have listed – and we remember those, who today, are facing much of what you described – and we thought we had improved from the early 1900’s!
What a wonderful Christmas gift, Roberta. 2023 has been difficult for me in different ways. Thank you for letting me know that I’m not alone.
Bless you in all of your endeavors! Thank you for your sharing,
Been awake since 1:30 a.m. and remembering happier times. Just read this/your amazing Grinch gift . Much love love to you my good friend (from happy times], Georgia Bopp.
It’s so good to hear from you again. That alone is a wonderful gift. I hope you are doing well.
Dear Roberta, once again your words of wisdom provide insight and strength. A true blessing that inspires so many. Wishing you and your family a 2024 that provides happiness, good health, and the opportunity to enjoy each day without so many challenges. Thank you for your ability to share so much with us.
Yes, I often think of how fortunate I am in comparison to what my ancestors went through and find strength in their resilience.
I thought of you the other day and wondered if you read about the Pennsylvania genealogist suing Ancestry for the ability to see records without paying a subscription? Then I went to my Ancestry account and there is a banner that pops up near your matches that says you may be able to see this now, but we are making changes and anything below this line will require a subscription to see. 😮 Specifically, you will still be able to see a match but to see the shared matches with that match you will a subscription. What a horrible message right before the holidays! I thought of you and would be very interested to see a post/blog about that. Stay blessed and I hope the holidays are brighter for you and your family.
Roberta
You are always an inspiration! As I am learning about the lives of my ancestors, I often think ” If they could see us now!”. I am a great fan of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novel and series because it makes us appreciate what so many of us have now and how much better off most of us are compared to our ancestors. Just going back to your (and mine) Acadian ancestors last fall was a good reminder that it is important to put things in perspective. Multiple credit cards you say?
Thank you, Roberta. Please continue talking to yourself AND sharing with your readers. I think we all are going through something and know others going through worse things. Sharing with others helps and gives us some perspective. Thanks for being YOU!
God bless you, dear lady, and thank you for sharing your tales of woe with a sound grip and great perspective on the past and today’s realities. Praying for the best for you (and all of us) in the new year. But just in case, keep talking to yourself (I do it all the time)…. sometimes you’re the only one who understands what you’re going through.
Thank you Roberta – I’ve been counting my blessings, remembering all those large and small experiences and items that I am so grateful for, from this past year… Sometimes, like you, I need to remind myself.
All the very best wishes for your upcoming un-Grinchy year in 2024.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I always get so much from your writing, whether it’s personal or academic. It feels like this year has been piling on misery for many of us and it’s helpful to put it in perspective. Your resilience in difficult times is amazing and your attitude shift is inspirational. I also take comfort learning about the lives of my ancestors and the hardships they faced. Wishing you a good new year.
These old photos bring back memories of visiting my grandparents in Owsley County, KY, in the 50’s and early 60’s. We definitely had to use an outhouse but it was usually situated over a creek. You could feel the wind blowing through the walls of the house. Some of my ancestors were from Claiborne and others came down through the Cumberland Gap from Virginia.
This was what I needed to read today as I wait for my daughter and grandson to visit (I’m laid up with a fractured tibia and not allowed to drive and losing my health insurance at the end of the month, ugh). But! I have a splint and advice on rehab. I have Christmas carols playing on my laptop and access to the internet. I have ice on my knee and Ibuprofen next to me. I have a cell phone and had FaceTime Xmas eve dinner with my sister and delightful nieces in another country. I don’t have to use an outhouse, although my Mom did for most of her childhood. And my cat just came by to remind me that I have him.
Merry Christmas to you and yours from me and my cat.
Wonderful! That you so much. I am sharing this with my family. Bless you and yours with the greatest hope for better times.
Thank you for the reminders. I forget that my grandmother didn’t know how to turn on an electric light when she moved to the big city of Nashville to go to school. I remember outhouses at my grandfather’s brother’s farm. Her tenacity changed the lives of her descendants.
Bless your heart, and you do have a lot of heart. I don’t have your strength or talent so I admire you tremendously and always enjoy your intelligence and a bunch of other great qualities.
Wow!! Thank you for your message and for sharing it with us! I’ve been down this Christmas due to it just being my husband and I this year, but I’ve been thankful for the many other blessings that I have right now. Thank you for reminding us how it could be so much worse! I’m so sorry for your struggles and your losses!! You won’t hear me say one thing about/against your statements on Covid/RSV/Flu! I’ve been working as a Pharmacy Tech for the last three years and see the continued sufferings of many and also the losses of friends and/or their family members. I’ve had to bite my lip to keep from cursing people with their foolish statements. God bless you and may your New Year be filled with much better days!!
Wishing you the best for the New Year and no Grinch anyone near you.
Sometimes it really helps to vent. We all need to do that.
Merry Christmas!
That triggers memories for me. I grew up in (A little better off than those in the photos) poverty on the South Side of Pine Mountain in Whitley County Kentucky.
My paternal grandmother was Sarah Matilda Chumley, daughter of Charles Ballard Chumley and Delina Carroll, of Claiborne County Tennessee. I never knew her , she died before I was born.
I have corresponded with Kathy Chumley who is wiorking on the history and genealogy of the Chumley family.
I know people tell you this all the time, but you are truly amazing, Roberta. Merry Christmas, and best wished for a happy New Year. Keep on keeping on.
I am so sorry to hear about all your misfortunes. 2023 was a rough and challenging year for us as well, with personal loss and health challenges. Here’s to a better 2024 for all of us! 🥂
You are a truly good person.
That really puts things into perspective. A friend of mine once said most people don’t know what it’s like to feel real hunger or hopelessness. Looking back at our ancestors like you did makes our daily troubles seem trivial. Thanks!
I admire you so much! I look forward to reading your blog. Thank you so much for what you impart.
Thank you.
Bless your heart Roberta you HAVE been through the mill. May your Grinch truly be gone as you enter and go through 2024! Thank you too for the reminder that yes, we are truly blessed. I too am a “survivor” of the Appalachia area and my cup runneth over.
Roberta, May your 2023 investments carry you forward for many many years. I am sorry you had to deal with all that. Thank you for dealing with the Grinch and putting a perspective view on life for all of us. A Happy and Prosperous New Year to You !
I have faced many challenges this year! And there are remaining challenges that will extend into 2024! I grew up in Hancock County, TN and lived much of the experiences shared by Travis Chumley. But guess what! I thought our family was rich – we had what we needed -good food, nice clothing, books to read, a delco electric plant (we had kerosene lamps before that), a good spring, and an outhouse (bathroom came much later). My parents gave me direction, validation, and encouraged me to further my education! I feel very blessed, despite the Grinch trying to steal Christmas from me. The memories sustain me and remind me that I can get through these challenges, too! Thanks for your inspirational message!
You are the best and such an inspiration, cousin Dolores.
I think I’ve corresponded with cousin Dolores, too, and I must say, you are both such an inspiration to me! (I left a more detailed comment on another recent post earlier.)
Wow, I thought my $5k worth of busted pipe, brake failure, and critically ill pet in a 48-hr period were bad! Hang in there!!
If you have homeowners’ insurance, they typically help with lightning strikes. A strike one day took out my parents’ irrigation well and various devices in their next door neighbor’s house. Insurance covered replacement of the well.
When I’ve had these hell years in the past (that 48 hrs wasn’t all of it for 2023, unfortunately) and looked forward to giving them the bum’s rush at the stroke of midnight, the next year often continued just as bad or worse. So I watch what I say about the departing year now lol. If nothing else, it gave me stories to tell.
Thank you for sharing such an inspiring post. A I am on my sofa in my home with heating and food to eat, reflecting on the lives of those who came before me reminds me to be grateful for all the blessings i have. Yes, i just got diagnosed with my 3rd round of Covid on my 50th wedding anniversary. We have had some a- c and other home repairs that were $$$, but we were able to have them done. I can afford to go to the doctor. When i look back at the lives of my ancestors, particularly the Acadian ancestors i have on both maternal and paternal lines, i realize how fortunate i am. Being forced from your home and country taking only what you could carry , seeing your home torched by the British and being separated from family. I am in awe of the strength and resilience they had to forge new lives in a foreign land. My goal for 2024 is to count my blessings and express gratitude.
Wow, what a powerful article of thoughtful sharing and bearing your soul for us on this post. We hear you, regardless of the lessons passed on to us, or the many Ancestors you have helped us find, we all appreciate your wisdom and your humanity. We are grateful and humble and we will look forward to your next writing’s
Your writings gave me solace to start the new year. I shared your article with family as it is relevant to each of us. Love and hugs and Happy New Year.
Love you Bonny!
I can’t even imagine how hard life was. My Speaks great grandmother’s oldest daughter died in 1922 six weeks after being severely burned in an accident at home doing laundry outside over a fire. I often think of her when I’m putting another load of laundry in my wonderful washer and dryer. I so hope you have a much better 2024, Roberta; you’ve had quite enough!
Thank you for bearing your soul and sharing your trials and tribulations. When we think we have it bad all we have to do is look on the other side of the fence. I thought I had a bad end of 2023. I had Covid and had to isolate and cancel appointments that now have to be rescheduled. My refrigerator freezer bit the dust and I had no one to help me but managed to rent a refrigerator freezer from a Rent A Center! I’m not able to get a new refrigerator until next Thursday. That’s not counting my health issues. But I count the blessings I do have in the family I do have my new relatives I found in 2016 by DNA testing including an awesome half sister! Blessings to all!