B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. . . These Are NOT Easy Times!

My mom and I are, currently, experiencing a minor inconvenience at this time.

For quite some time now, we've had quite a struggle at making ends meet.  I've just gotten off the phone from paying a bill to reconnect my gas (heat & hot water).  Had I been able to afford to do it last week, this could have been done for a fraction of the cost (paying on utility in a gradual way instead of a chunk all-at-once and experiencing no disconnect).  However, one week has made a major difference of several hundred dollars.  It will be re-connected sometime on Monday.  I would have chosen to pay off my mom's first, but she told me that I lived in a more drafty place and she would be fine--and she will be, as she's welcome to spend any nights at my place when it's too cold for her.

In the weeks ahead, we're expecting more money in from various sources, so this is only temporary for us.  However, it seems like forever.

Imagine what it would be like if this were more permanent--if we didn't even have places to live.

My dad was an Army brat, so The Great Depression wasn't something that he lived with on an up-close-and-personal basis.  My mom grew up in a small village in the southwest part of Central Indiana.  She said that they were poor but they didn't even realize it back then.  They were never hungry and had enough to share with various neighbors who needed it.  As for being cold, they were cold in the usual way of alternating between facing and turning ones back on a stove or fireplace so as to heat different parts of the body at one time.

My folks were both hardworking people who retired from white collar General Motors.  I'm a writer--meaning that it might be disputed re: just how hardworking I am.  That's all a matter of opinion.  I've worked at temporary jobs here and there, but my folks had enough to allow me to pursue my dream of teaching a world via the written word.  So far, I've touched hearts and elicited both laughter and tears.  I think I've made a positive difference in at least a few lives.  However, my career hasn't had me laughing all the way to the bank.

I grew up in middle-class comfort.  We never were an extravagant family, but my folks went to Cuba before I was born, and we've all traveled widely in every state except for Alaska as well as in Canada and Mexico.

We've lived on the same farm since early in 1954 (when I was a little over a year old) and in a three-room-and-a-bath apartment before that.

Now, my widowed mom and I have the potential to live very comfortably for the rest of our earthly lives.  However--due to a variety of circumstances--this very comfortable lifestyle is still off in the future somewhere.

Even now in the ways that count, we feel very rich, as we have each other along with lots of wonderful friends and relatives, and we enjoy the simple things of life.  It doesn't take too much to keep us entertained and happy.

However, for the first time in our lives, we are living in poverty and we know it.

But we also know that there are plenty of people out there who would trade their poverty for ours--that we must seem as rich as Donald Trump to them.

Counting our blessings, we remember that a furnace and water heater DO need a house in order to work.  There are no gas meters attached to park benches and cardboard boxes nor are they attached to shopping carts full of a few treasured and/or necessary possessions.

The kind of poverty that has the potential to lead to homelessness isn't something belonging to a fringe group of people who "deserve"  (as if it's the right of anyone to point a judgmental finger to proclaim anyone as being deserving of this) to end up like this, thanks to squandering money on booze, tobacco, drugs, and sinful living.

The faces of the poor--and, potentially, homeless--reflect all classes of people, and each individual one of them has a story to tell.

Don't worry about my mom and me.  We have a lot of helpful and understanding people in our lives, so we're going to be fine in the long run--and we're still not in the worst shape now when we measure our lives by examples of where we could be.

However, there are people out there who are also good, hardworking people who never expected to ever end up in their current situations any more than we did.

If you come across these people, please help them whenever you can--and, even if you have no material means to help them, you can still help them a whole lot by simply treating them with dignity and compassion.

Please take the time to click on this link and read over the information to which you're taken.