Sometimes it’s tough loving this place.
Even the most die hard Yazooans, and I’m certainly among the most fanatical, have to look in the mirror sometimes and wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to move somewhere with fewer challenges.
What would it be like to live in a place where the little things are already taken care of so you can focus on improving on what you already have rather than fixing things that are broken? A place where people picked up their own trash instead of throwing it in the street and the local schools were focused on improving extracurricular activities and athletics because the academics were already top notch.
When those times sneak up on me I feel like a preacher momentarily questioning his faith.
I’m fully invested in this community because it’s where I want to be. Jamie and I have had plenty of unsolicited offers to relocate, but we know in our hearts that this is where we want to be.
This is home. We know it, and we love it anyway.
Recent days have been confirmation that we’re not crazy. This community really is as wonderful as we think it is.
I’ve been sick for the past few weeks. It hasn’t been anything life threatening, but what started out like a bad cold wouldn’t go away and just seemed to keep getting worse.
I actually went to the doctor three times in three weeks. Anyone who knows me realizes that I’m feeling pretty bad if I go to the doctor. I love my doctor, and I trust him completely, but I just don’t like taking the time out of the day to go – even when I know I should.
I am also one of the most hard headed people alive. That quality normally serves me well, but it didn’t in this case. Even though I was sick and exhausted, I kept on working like nothing was wrong.
In fact, with two special section deadlines looming and trying to figure out how to make up for some lost revenue I was actually putting in a lot of extra hours and working harder than ever. The people closest to me started telling me they were worried about me, and my response was that they needed to worry about trying to keep up.
I had way too much to do to be sick.
Well since I couldn’t stop for sickness, sickness was kind enough to stop for me. Last Saturday morning I coughed so hard that it felt like someone stabbed me in the ribs. The pain wouldn’t go way no matter how hard I tried to shake it off. I wound up in the emergency room.
I’m not telling you all of this to bore you with my list of ailments.
What I really want to say is what a wonderful community we live in. I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who reached out to let me know they were praying for us and offered to help.
I’ve had people call to tell me they were putting me on prayer lists. Jamie said they prayed for me at the Lions Club meeting last week. One member stopped by the office this week just to check on me. Glenn Warrington heard Jamie mention that I was feeling bad during the city council meeting and contacted me to let me know he added me to his church’s prayer list.
Even some elected officials, who I thought would probably secretly enjoy seeing me suffer a little, expressed concern.
All of this really touched me.
One of the things that I’ve noticed about some of these bigger communities that seem to have it together when it comes to some of the things that I mentioned at the beginning of this column is that they aren’t as connected as we are. People can’t even hold the door open for each other or say thank you, much less pray for someone in need or lend a helping hand.
I’ll take our shortcomings any day over theirs.
Thanks for all the prayers. They are working.
