Never Done Without

I took a cushion off one of my porch rockers and put it on my office chair. The padding in my office chair has been giving way for a while now, causing my butt to go numb. And since I got no money to go to the secondhand store and get another chair  I figured I’d make do with what I have. I know I’ve told this story at least a few hundred times about my grandmothers raising families during the Great Depression and World War 2 respectively. Of how my Grandma T saved every scrap of food to reuse in another dish. While my Granny G had to raise a family on wartime ration coupons for just about everything.
 
I was lucky born in the early 60’s, my dad had a great factory job, and bought a home in the suburbs on the GI Bill. My mother didn’t have to have a job other than being a housewife and a mother. Living in a quiet working class neighborhood, we have not gotten everything we wanted, but we never did without. Heading into my teenage years, things started to change. The once idealistic 60’s turned into the disillusionment of the 1970’s, with the oil embargo, runaway inflation, and high interest rates (sound familiar?) Graduating the next decade didn’t make it any better, with factory jobs disappearing and low-wage service jobs becoming the career choice.
 
Through the struggles of raising a large family on one income with a disabled spouse wasn’t  much fun. But with the know how I learned from my grandparents and my parents, we survived. Looking out the window at the partly cloudy skies. I still hear the morning birds sing, I see our tuxedo cat sleeping quietly on the bed, while my bride writes her endless notes so she can remember. I know I will survive. I still struggle to free my mind every day of the troubles that haunt me. But it’s good to know I can still take a deep breath and remember. That despite all the little things that weigh me down, with love I have never done without.