I started to try my hand at a blog a few years ago with the intention of writing about this ordinary life in small town America and my place in it. It was fun for a while and I looked forward to getting on line and finding something to say, reading other thoughts and trying to remember punctuation rules from school. Things begin happening to take up my time and cloud my mind so that I came here less and less often. There were things in my world I couldn’t get my head around enough to put words to paper about them and they were sometimes to sad to tell.

My grandson came to live with my husband and me. We loved having him and his dog with us and being a part of his life. Then his dad committed suicide. Our focus became comforting him as best we could. His mother, my daughter, became very sick. So many problems. She fell on ice and shattered her pelvis, barely survived surgery for that and had trouble walking for a while. She had neck surgery that left her with almost constant pain. She had asthma and severe allergies. She developed COPD for which she was prescribed many medications that did not mix well with others. She died of congestive heart failure about two years after her ex husband had died leaving our grandson and granddaughter without a mother when they were twenty-two and eighteen years old. My granddaughter was pregnant when her mother died and she was going to school to become a surgical technician. She also came to live with us and when the baby came I took care of her so the granddaughter could go to classes. She became pregnant again and had a second daughter when the first was not quiet two. Both babies, mom and dad, all lived with us until she finished her training and they were able to be on their own. This is why I have been so busy.

I also have a son living on the east coast with his family, two sons and a step-daughter. The year before my daughter died I organized a weeklong celebration of our son’s 50th birthday. We rented a house on the lake where the pre-teen grandsons and a cousin spent the days playing in the water and I spent my time cooking for everybody, arranging rental boats, driving other family to and from the cottage and supervising the kids so the adults could go out. That kept me a bit busy too.

After my granddaughter and her family moved out that left us with the grandson who is twenty-five now and the dog in our house. He struggled with the death of his parents and had trouble settling into a job. Much of my time was devoted to encouraging him and often entertaining his friends. Recently he also moved out of our house for a job elsewhere that looks very promising and he is managing his grief much better.

Now, it’s just the husband and me with the dog. I have gone from managing to keep two babies, three young adults, a seventy-five year old husband, a one hundred pound dog and me all taken care of in a reasonably clean house and without much conflict to trying to maintain a happy home life for just the two of us when we can’t go anywhere or do anything because there’s a deadly virus out there. It’s been quiet an adjustment.

So that’s a summary of life, my life anyway, in a small town in the bible belt.