2003-01-18 - 11:38 a.m.

Deeper reflections

800 and d have gone to a car auction. There are several Jeep Cherokees returned from lease and other types of 'good buys' there and I told them they could have $1500 of the money I have saved at the credit union if they saw something irresistible. It would be awful if 800 came across something spectacularly affordable and had no money. That will make a pretty big dent in my savings but the pickup is on its last legs and 800 needs something to haul stuff in.

Besides I have a method in my madness. I would like to get a bigger computer. That is said with a lot of trepidation since I am really used to what I have but since it was purchased in 97, it is probably obsolete at least 10 times over. Doing Mamma's pictures and using a digital camera are both going to take something bigger than this and I can give this one to d to use for school. 1d could also do billing on it if she chose.

Her diabetes is getting worse and worse and each new medicine she is given causes adverse reactions. At 39, she may not have too much longer to live or her eyesight may fail.

After writing about sons and daughters and marriages yesterday, several interesting comments made me do some deeper thinking on that subject. There are always exceptions to any rule and I am one of the biggest. I spent much more time with 800's side of the family than mine over the years. That was where he felt the most comfortable and there were other reasons also. My folks lived in a 27 foot trailer with no inside plumbing, parked in a trailer court. Not the homelike parks seen nowadays, but the kind that is even more crude that the average RV setup. Each trailer had a space, usually hard dirt just big enough for the trailer and a car parked next to it. A communal wash house and bathrooms for men and women usually sat in the center of the court.

Each trailer was only about 10 or 15 feet away from its neighbor and there was not much privacy. When the weather was warm enough, folks sat outside on old chairs or couches that remained in the weather year round. Some who stayed in a particular court for a longer period of time tried to cultivate a little patch of grass or flowers but I don't remember seeing too many successful efforts. 800's people all had nice homes, either in town or on their farms and naturally he would rather take our little family there than to a trailer court. The fact that my dad would often be drunk and my mom talking to unseen 'someones' was another reason he did not want our kids exposed to such a lifestyle. And he was right. I don't regret the exposure to his side of the family. I needed that exposure as bad as my children did. Most of them were Christians and were concerned that I become one also. They knew even then that was the only chance we all had.

The circumstances didn't make me love my family any less but it did keep me physically away from them. I have boxes of letter that Mamma saved from me. I wrote long letters every week, filled with all the doings of our family and after Daddy died and sis married, 800 was always very good to go and get her (sometimes 8 or 9 hundred miles one way) to spend a week with us. In the last 10 years of her life, I started going to visit her with my grown girls and staying with her for days every summer. Those were good times and I am so glad we were able to make up for the separated years. Little sis always lived within 10 miles of Mamma and her child was raised closely with his grandmother. She often babysat, as close to him as he grew up as I am to d. I never resented the fact that sis and her family were much closer to Mamma. In fact, I was happy and relieved that they were able to fill in the gap that I couldn't. I could have pushed for more visits at any time in my married life, but I think it might have caused troubles. Their pagan lifestyle was so different from our Christian one.

2d, my most sensible and biddable child, remarked once that it would not have been good for her to spend time in that atmosphere as a young person. The pleasures of sin may be just for a season, but they are pleasures. Pleasures that turn into traps with chains that tighten as the years pass.

I have turkey soup cooking upstairs and it is starting to smell very good. Take one cube of margarine or butter, some yellow onions, green onion tops, and red peppers all frozen in the summer, saute in the pot for a while with cubed turkey left over from some holiday dinner. Add water, dried potatoes from Y2K, corn, salt, pepper and some chicken broth granules and leave to simmer while you go play on the computer. It's almost time to add the rest of a container of cream left in the refrigerator, and maybe some corn starch for thickening and the main meal of the day will be ready. I may mix up some biscuits or I may just serve crackers, then I shall go to bed in the afternoon in preparation for another week of work.

My 'weekends' just aren't long enough any more. The endurance test I run each night for a week is starting to wear on me.

EE's devotional

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