Pam's Pretty Good Life: Sweet, Simple Things

It's time for a gratitude list. The past several weeks have been surreal in our community. So much destruction and devastation. True, no lives have been lost. I'm so grateful for that. But many people's sense of home and security has been badly eroded. It's important to be vigilant so that folks don't fall into despair. Then it's not a sudden death that occurs, but instead a slow, insidious death of spirit. I think it helps people regain hope and security when their community comes together to help one another. It's a beautiful thing to see a community come together. Today Lenny and I helped, along with strangers, an elderly woman move back into her home. We gathered in her yard at 2PM as strangers, but at 6PM as we went our separate ways, we had made new friends, even exchanged e-mail addresses with some to keep in touch in the coming days. Connections were made that, in normal times, never would have been made. I'm looking forward to more of that in the weeks and months to come as we do our best to answer calls for help where it's needed.

With that said, here's my list of Sweet, Simple Things for today:

1. Seedless watermelon. Right up there with sliced bread.

2. Phone call from my son David, who lives in Fargo. He and his wife, Jenilee, are house-hunting for their first home and it's such a thrill to share in the excitement. {Her parent's home (her childhood home) was lost in the flood; there's irony there.}