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A belated thank you
I've never been very good at getting thank you notes written. It's not that I'm not thankful, it's more a matter of taking the time to show it.
I've got a thank you here that is long overdue. It's addressed to "Father" and though it is late, it is certainly heartfelt.
"Thank you for Wichita.
Yes, I know. You didn't send us. We went on our own. And it was all my doing. I was in a snit, life wasn't working out just like I thought it ought, and, doing my best imitation of a 2-year-old, I'm the one who stranded us in Wichita.
And you let it happen.
Mostly because it needed to happen. Sometimes, the terrible twos last long beyond age 2, and I was past time for a day of reckoning."
We left everything behind. And when I say everything, I mean everything, except the clean laundry still in the car from my earlier trip to the laundromat that day, our brand new 9-inch black and white television, and Missy, arguably the world's ugliest dog.
Admittedly, we didn't leave much behind. A one bedroom ramshackle house I had insisted we rent with a too-small kitchen, an even smaller bath, and all of the second-hand furnishings family had gifted us with when we had married a year earlier, including three televisions. (One served as a TV stand, one provided sound and the top one provided the picture. The top two had failed a few weeks earlier, and we had splurged on the new portable black-and-white. It was small enough to ride with Danny, me, Roy and Ricky in our red VW hatchback.)
Our destination was Miami, Fla. A cold November wind had begun to blow in Colorado, and to us, Florida was paradise defined. A blow-out 18 miles west of Wichita changed everything. Our limited resources, not as easily replenished as we had hoped, soon found the four of us warming canned soup over a makeshift sterno stove on the roadside, taking turns sleeping in the car. Everyone found work at menial jobs Americans apparently will no longer do, but paydays were days away. As soon as we scrounged up some cash, we found affordable housing, sharing a one-room cabin that at least provided us with a stove, refrigerator and bathroom for the princely sum of $20 per week. Not the most ideal situation for newlyweds, nor for our two hapless friends who had gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment, deciding to join us on our Florida adventure. Still, I am so thankful for all of the Wichita lessons.
Especially now.
For weeks now, we've been publishing stories chronicling the financial hens coming home to roost nationwide, finding foreclosure notices on the coop. It had to happen. We've lived in a credit bubble for far too long, and everyone knows you cannot continue to live beyond your means indefinitely. Like homing pigeons, all the bills find their way to the mailbox and when they all come due simultaneously, and Peter, who was always good for a quick loan to pay Paul, has left home and neglected to provide a forwarding address, it gets pretty serious pretty fast.
I know. The terrain is all too familiar. And having passed that way more than once, Wichita was only my first lesson in "home economics." I'm grateful to detour around that rocky road this time around. Before moving to McCook, we were painted into a corner (using our own paint, mind you -- no passing the buck allowed), forced to sell out or go bankrupt. Since we were of the opinion that in our case that would have amounted to legalized theft, bankruptcy wasn't an option. We've spent the intervening years eradicating the remaining debt and learning how to live without credit, in any form.
In other words, we've spent the intervening years "making do."
It's a lesson everyone needs to take to heart, if only to prevent the tragedies cited in an Associated Press story released for publication Oct. 13.
The horrors of the Great Depression come back fully formed in this story, providing details of one out-of-work money manager in California, who not only killed himself, but his wife, his three sons and his mother-in-law, believing it to be more honorable to send them to the grave than to leave them bereft of support.
In another incident, a woman, hiding the family's dire financial condition from her husband, spent months planning her successful suicide, and in Ohio, a 90-year-old woman shot herself in the chest as authorities arrived to evict her from her home of 38 years. (Her suicide attempt failed. As of this writing she is recovering and her mortgage has been forgiven.)
Authorities nationwide are understandably alarmed and suicide hotline calls are on the rise.
A clinical psychologist in Houston has said that the current crisis is breeding a sense of chronic anxiety and a counselor at Catholic Charities USA reports that half of her clients are on some form of antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication.
I can understand why. Wichita revealed my own predilection toward depression and I've no desire to return to that abysmal state of mind ever again.
But Wichita also taught me that you can lose every single possession you own and survive. Wichita taught me that humility is a gift, not an indictment, that making a mistake (or several) is not the end of the world, but only a slight detour on the way to paradise. Wichita even taught me that it is possible to call a 1968 VW hatchback home and be grateful for it.
So, roll up your shirtsleeves (it will save on wear-and-tear) and do the next right thing in front of you, then the next right thing and then the next. Keep doing that and at day's end, you will find that there is so much to be grateful for, even if it is just a can of soup, warmed on the side of the highway.
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:16 (KJV)
Things you won't see in heaven:
foreclosure notices
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