laura hough smith

In August of this year, I will have lived in Mississippi for as long as I lived in Missouri.
I left southeast Missouri in August 1996 for college at Ole Miss, and I haven’t been back except to visit on holidays, weddings and funerals.
For a long time that was by choice. I was eager to make a career in journalism and I found my first post-grad job in Vicksburg.
But now, it’s harder to be away from home. I long for the endless options of free childcare my family could provide. I’m sad that my daughters won’t grow up with her cousins just across town. I miss the ease of living in a place where everyone knows me, my parents, my grandparents and the rest of my people. I miss that sense of belonging and the confidence that came with it.
Wesley and I moved to Greenville five years ago, wanting to start a family in a small town as we were both raised. We bought our first house here and had both our daughters here. We made it our home and have been very happy.
That our choice was the correct one was never so obvious — and we were never so grateful — as it was a couple of months ago. Only a month after Mary Fin was born – I developed a blood clot in my lungs. This isn’t new for me; this is my second pulmonary embolism, but it was terrifying all the same.
I was desperate not to leave my daughters and hated leaving them for a hospital stay. In the midst of the holiday season, it was a low place to be.
Our friends here responded in a way that still makes me cry. People who only weeks before were on our doorstep with baby gifts and goodies arrived with still more comfort – in the form of warm food and tight hugs.
Wesley and I were awed and humbled. It renewed our belief in this strange, wonderful Delta land.
Having a second child has brought some fun challenges to our house, and one of them is trying to make it to various meetings after work. One of my church groups has graciously accepted the fact that I will arrive at the meeting late and with a baby to feed or rock to sleep. They welcome us and often do the rocking or feeding for me, just as they do on Sunday mornings in the pew. As a Delta transplant, it brings tears to my eyes to type that. It means so, so much.
Sometimes it is easy to get down about the Delta or Greenville. We are all aware of the steep challenges we face, and we have much work to do to improve this fine place. Certainly, the first step is to continue to build one another up, I believe. Our guest pastor last Sunday said something like, “Life is short. Make haste to be kind.” I pray that I can be a person that others feel safe to plant their roots near as this community has done for me. For the Delta’s most important and best asset isn’t the land, the river or the music. It is the people, and I’m so grateful to call them mine.

© Laura Hough Smith and laurahoughsmith, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Laura Hough Smith and laurahoughsmith with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.