It's two in the morning, and my pain meds have worn off. As I reach over to the nightstand where two Lance crackers and a ripe mandarin orange are waiting to buffer my next dose, I find myself reflecting on my blessings.
I am one of the richest people you will ever meet but perhaps not in the traditional sense. God used some special circumstances in my youth to help me arrive at this place.
While my parents both came from middle-class backgrounds and were well-educated, our family lived in relative poverty after we moved across North Carolina to rural Appalachia in the mid-60's. I didn't realize it at the time, though. When we relocated from the bustle of Goldsboro to a small farm in a mountain cove of Waynesville, I was thrilled. The property came with an old three-story tobacco barn, perfect for all-day play on a rainy day, and an old swayback plow horse named Ned. What better stage could an imaginative nine-year-old girl have?
I didn't feel the pinch of humble living until ninth grade.
I couldn't join band because there wasn't any money for instrument rental. I had to decline my National Honor Society invitation because we didn't have the membership fee. I never attended a ball game, dance, or prom. I couldn't afford make-up, because I worked on the family farm without wages. I resorted to studying fashion magazines and cutting my hair with my mother's kitchen scissors. The only reason I got to wear braces like the cool kids was because the local orthodontist took pity on me and allowed me to work off the expense one summer.
Our family didn't take vacations, except to visit my Kentucky grandparents for a week every summer. There I experienced the delights of a fresh banana or a small can of Donald Duck orange juice at breakfast. In place of watching TV or going to the movies, my grandfather took me on long walks down to the campus of Western Kentucky University, where he had once taught. In the evenings, he would sit on the deep porch reciting poetry and retelling stories passed down from his forefathers.
Once a year, we would drive twenty-six miles to Asheville so Mom could trade in her S&W green stamp books. Afterward, we sat beneath the golden arches in our old Buick and enjoyed a McDonald's hamburger, French fries, and milkshake. I savored every bite!
Highlights of the holiday season included avidly listening to the kitchen radio for word of the first snow day and then endlessly sledding down the hill behind the farmhouse. As Christmas approached, we would decorate a scrub pine with tinsel and pull faded paper decorations from a shoe box. In the evenings, my brother and I would optimistically dog-ear the Sears Wish Book catalog. We never lost hope that there might be something more under the Christmas tree than hard candies, tangerines, and a handful of nuts.
Music was free, however, and we had that in abundance. Mother often played carols on the upright piano in my brother's bedroom or complex arrangements on the full-console organ that crowded the other furniture in our living room. In addition to this, I could always count on school and area churches to provide a full program of new music to learn.
It seemed normal to me that college would be a continuation of that lifestyle. When I went off to school in the fall, I carried my belongings in a cardboard box and clutched the five-dollar bill my brother handed me as he let me out on the curb. Fortunately, the college's work-study program granted me ten hours a week at sixty-five cents an hour. That, along with the spare change I found between the couch cushions in the dorm lounge, covered my personal items.
This is not a sad story, however. It was a blessing to live humbly back then. Economic limitations not only prompted me to draw closer to God, but they also provided me with a deep appreciation for life's simplest pleasures. Even now, I take nothing for granted and am grateful for all I have. Each day is an opportunity for childlike joy and wonder.
So, in the wee morning hours, as I buffer some pain meds with a bit of food (my new knee is healing nicely, thank you), I find myself praising God for two Lance peanut butter crackers and a tangy Halo that was ripening on a tree in some exotic location two weeks ago.
Life doesn't get much better than this.
By the grace of God, I have learned how to abound in a little as well as much. I am very fortunate indeed!
Kay O'Hara
March 6, 2024
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