Janet's Blog

I don't feel old. Yet, the signs are there. My hair is gray. I have eight, almost nine, grandchildren. Sometimes I forget people's names, or why I walked into a certain room. I have a few wrinkles here and there, and too many aches and pains. Even so, I don't feel old because I still get around pretty well; I walk three miles or so every day. Sometimes I stop to sit on a convenient bench for a few minutes, just to rest, but then I get up and continue on my way. However, my need for rest must have been concerning to one other walker this summer, because he stopped to ask me if I was okay, just because I was sitting down for a minute. I assured him I was fine, and he continued on his way. And, lest you worry, too, I really was fine. The sad part about getting older is that you stay young on the inside, but nobody can tell any more. In a few weeks, we will be commemorating that fateful day when the World Trade Center was destroyed and the Pentagon was badly damaged when severa...

A few weeks ago, Bill and I headed to a family reunion in Norfolk with daughter, Victoria, and son, Levi, in the back seat. On a Friday morning, we angled our way up to Alliance from Gering, then caught Highway 2 across the sandhills. I like to call it "no man's land," because the whole region, though beautiful, is very sparsely populated. When we drive to Norfolk, it takes us about six hours of driving time, plus another hour or so for necessary stops, to go the 373 miles from here to there. It's important to note that I feel like regular stops are much more necessary than Bill does, but he usually humors me. The problem is that there aren't too many places to stop along the way, so we have to plan carefully for mealtime stops. There is a 200 mile stretch where the biggest town might have 200 people on a good day. Most communities have at least one gas station with an abundance of snacks and various kinds of drinks, but none of that is on my doctor-prescribed, lo...

All around me, it seems like so many people are hurting. This isn't too unusual. It's just the way life is sometimes. We can go for several weeks or months when everyone around us seems to be doing just fine. But then, BOOM! All of a sudden, everything seems to be going wrong for so many people we know. Right now, I know several people who are fighting cancer, and several more who have been hospitalized with rare and not-so-rare maladies. Some have broken bones that are healing--slowly.  Many people in my area have hail-damaged cars and homes, or even whole fields--and livelihoods--destroyed by hail or drought, or both. Not too far away, ranchers are struggling to recover from devastating wildfires. I've watched happy marriages dissolve into divorce. Babies have been born with lifelong challenges. Older adults are plagued with various ailments, including gut-wrenching dementia. Children and young adults have been killed in car accidents. Sudden death, at any age, is devasta...