Perhaps the best part of my dad’s 11-day hospital stay in Missouri was that my 5-year old Dylan got to experience first-hand what it means to be part of the community where I spent my childhood.
My parents live in Richland, MO, a one-stop light town with about 2,000 people. There is not a mall, McDonald’s or movie theatre in town and only one Starbucks in about a 70-mile radius. (Believe me after long nights in the hospital, this was KILLING me!) My parents, both teachers, have lived in Richland for more than 40 years. The outpouring of community support during my dad’s hospital stay was positively overflowing.
People who had known me in diapers were now offering to care for my son while I was spending time with my dad. One of dad’s best fishing buddies would regularly show up at 6:00 a.m. to visit dad and even brought homegrown strawberries and blackberries. My former typing teacher (yes, before computers) and her husband stopped by the hospital at 11 p.m. and brought me coffee. The high school basketball coach and his wife, who is the school counselor, watched my son the entire day and then thought nothing of inviting my mom and me into their home for dinner. Then to top it off, the coach, who doubles as a shop teacher, spent hours in the 90+-degree heat to build handrails for front door to ease dad’s transition home.
One of my former high school classmates, whom I had known since kindergarten, was in charge of vacation bible school and invited Dylan to come for the week. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I watched my son play kickball with other kids – something I adored doing as a child. He made s’mores for the first time at that camp, and sang church songs I learned as a kid, too.
We also received an invite to a birthday party at our local (and only) swimming pool. Watching Dylan swim in the heat of summer in the same pool I splashed around in as a kid was special. He even offered up that this place was “cool!"
I took some solace in knowing that Dylan was seeing this trip as a vacation of sorts while I was wearing my mom hat and worried-sick daughter hat simultaneously.
I returned to my suburban life after my dad finally cleared up, complete with multiple Starbucks, grocery stores, traffic lights and god-awful traffic, and all the conveniences of modern life. It’s kid-centric, which is part of why we live here. But the 11 days I spent in Missouri makes me think about a sense of community I took for granted as a child. Perhaps, I think, what you give up in amenities you can recoup in other ways. I feel fortunate Dylan got to experience it first-hand if only for a little while…