When I was a fairly young adult, we lived in a large house in the suburbs. My husband commuted to a full time job and by the time we had four children, I worked part time as a registered nurse in an intensive care unit. We weren't very happy with some of the social engineering ideas that the local schools were attempting to teach our children, and so we began to homeschool. Academically, our kids did well, but we were still concerned that they were becoming far better consumers than we wanted them to be. They knew all the fast food restaurants and what was on sale, and what they sold as Costco, when we wanted them to learn about animals, repairing mechanical items, and reading for detail. We eventually realized that we wanted to give them the childhoods that we had, and that this was only possible in a very rural area where we could keep cows, goats, horses and other animals. We needed to live in a place where my husband could teach my sons how to change the oil and rebuild an engine, not in a place that restricted the number of dogs you could own to two.
When our youngest was less than a year, we bought about forty acres in a rural area, and then not too long after bought additional land from a neighbor and so our holdings there totaled ninety acres. There weren't houses for sale in the area, and so we needed to build one. One weekend, we found a builder we liked, and we marked out where we wanted the house sited, and work began. The house was completed quickly, and by Spring we moved our family to the country. This was an adjustment. My husband drove more than an hour to work now, and our children had no pizza delivery or any Chinese food in the entire county. It didn't take long for them to find things to fill their days. One began to paint on canvas, another began to sculpt, and two became very interested in computers and computer languages. We started an alpaca farm. We had eight dogs, and the kids raised chickens and rabbits.
It's hard to believe that twenty years have now passed since the courageous choice to move to a very rural county. One of the benefits of doing so is that with fewer people present, one tends to get to know people in a rural county better than you might have otherwise. There is also a generosity of spirit that doesn't exist within the suburbs. One neighbor will drive another to the city for his cancer treatments, and will do so sometimes for months. One neighbor will give another a horse when he realizes that he has proper housing and would enjoy one. It isn't at all unusual for people to give a piano to a family who has a child who wishes to learn. We have had the blessing of being included by the rugged individualists who make up this county and who have played a part in building who our children became, and we will be forever grateful for this, and for our decision to have come here.
Of course, time moves on. As the kids neared college, we sold the original forty acres and the house, and built another. Some of our beloved neighbors moved out of state. Our youngest son died suddenly, leaving us sorrowful. My husband lost the job he'd had for many years, and started his own business, which reduced our income and our financial security. Our remaining children went to college. Today, our children have businesses, homes, and two of those children have their own children now.
I don't often look at the obituaries, but I did this week because I'd heard that one of our friends had died. When I did, I learned that fifteen people in our rural community had died within the last thirty days! A couple of them who had worked in farming had been treated for cancer. Another one was a man who considered giving his business to one of our sons when his own son died suddenly, and now would not be able to take over his father's business. Another was a couple who died within a week of one another. Two of them were women who were very active in charitable and church endeavors locally. In rural places, we are dependent upon one another and so there may not be the same divisions that might exist elsewhere between different races. Almost half of the people who died this week were African Americans whose families have lived here for a hundred years or more. I want to cry when I remember that they welcomed us. Some of them brought us freshly baked bread when our son died, and others were thrilled to get our duck eggs when we still had them. Fifteen people gone within thirty days is a lot of people from a rural place. A few had cancer. Some had Type II diabetes. One had an autoimmune illness. There were three heart attacks or myocardial infarctions. Whether the remaining deaths had to do with influenzas, COVID-19 or the flurry of supposed COVID-19 immunizations, I don't know. I know only that I will remember all of these decent people who positively impacted the life we lived here in both the good and the bad times, and who also shaped the type of people our own children became.
In the years following our son's death, we adopted a teen, in an attempt to make more sense of the insensible and sudden loss of our son. Our community was welcoming to a new son, who easily could have been met with suspicion. We are thankful for the welcome given to him too.
This month our family grieves the loss of fifteen people from our area who welcomed us, shared with us, and actually modeled scripture for us, during the last twenty years of many changes in this country. We have gratitude for having known them. May God bless them all, and comfort their families in this new age of 2021.
