Rantings and Ravings

By Sun Advocate

This week I wasn’t sure I would get anything written for this column. We welcomed two new additions to our home. Our grandchildren are living with us for a while. What a change to our routine.
While I try to write this at the same time I am answering about 50 questions about everything under the sun for my five year old granddaughter.
I have been through this before, but I sure forgot how different it was to have little ones around. For whatever reason there are a lot of grandparents raising their grandchildren these days. Maybe our generation missed the mark when we were raising our kids. Maybe raising kids is more complicated than it was years back. Maybe it is just the way it is supposed to be. I don’t know the answer to this question but maybe the important thing is that there is family there when it is needed.
Life is not always the way we would like it to be. Just when we think things are going great, we are thrown a curveball. Illness, death, weather, job changes can all affect our lives and those around us in an instant. I think about how different the lives of the people who lived in the path of hurricane Katrina are right now than they were two weeks ago.
Who can know what life will hand us. All we can know is how we will try and make the best of each situation as it comes.
For us this is a good thing in the midst of a long journey we began over a year ago. Even though we are just beginning a new phase of our lives we are hopefully leaving the crisis portion of this event.
Each and every day families in our community are dealing with individual crisis. Most of us are unaware of these events unless they affect us personally, or it is large enough that the media tells the story.
For each and everyone that is dealing with some personal pain, I hope there are many around you that are there to offer support. Reach out and use the help that is there. It doesn’t make you look weak but instead brings you great strength.
What makes a community a community is the support system, and for many in our town there is a good one.
At one point or another we will all need it, so it is a good thing it is there.