Farm to Family Connection - Commentary

FARM TO FAMILY COMMENTARY
---Select commentary from a weekly column by Curt Arens published in the Cedar County News, Hartington, NE

Feb. 2010

Rural Compassion

Dear Friends,
I like to think that most folks living around here treat each other pretty well most of the time. We have a tendency to know our neighbors, to look in on those who need a little help, to attend and participate in all of the great events in our lives together, including births and baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, reunions and funerals, not to mention lots of birthday parties in between.

We enjoy gathering and celebrating as a community. Generally, we like each other and it shows. County fairs and church bazaars become social gatherings, allowing families and friends to catch up with each other’s lives.

Around here, knowing and caring about each other is not nosiness. It is compassion and friendliness. We like working together, whether it is vending at farmers’ markets or working a community garden, sharing produce with neighbors, working at church and school functions, or volunteering at the senior center. We combine work and socializing, and we create lasting bonds that cannot be broken.

I thought about all of these things as we sent my father to his final resting place last week. The friends and families who mourned the passing of this great family farmer, conservationist, spiritual and family mentor with us, were the same folks who we have mourned the passing of others with over the years.

My Dad always said that people in our communities turn up for life’s big events. He would have been pleasantly surprised at how many “turned up” for his final event on this earth, the celebration of his life and his entry into the next life.

People from out of town, from far away, that attended his funeral mimicked comments I’ve heard from others over the years who have attended funerals here. They commented about how people genuinely care about a grieving family. They commented on the funeral Mass, the American Legion honor guard, the great meal, and the number of friends who turn up at the wake service and funeral.

They are surprised at how much all of us in our little village rely on each other and how close we can become in a small town. It is difficult, if you haven’t grown up in this warm atmosphere, to truly grasp the connection we all seem to feel for each other.

I think it is a great credit and asset to our communities that we are this way. We are often called homespun and simple, by people who don’t understand a rural lifestyle. With the changing society, we might feel that we are somehow inferior or backward, because of the way we live and where we live, isolated from the cosmopolitan urban landscape.

But those of us who live here know better. What we have are relationships, friendships, families and neighbors. We have strong bonds that reach across fields and streets, beyond fences and gates, into each other’s hearts.

Difficult times, as I’ve written in this space many times, often bring out the best in small town and family farm life. We learn who our true friends are. We learn to depend on our faith even more than usual. We learn who we can turn to and who we can count on most. We learn how fortunate we really are to live where we do and to be a part of such a special and unique phenomenon that is rural life.

Talk with you next week.