A Heidi column

There are things a father never forgets about his kids. One of those memories involves my eldest daughter, Heidi Ostrom Duncan.

She used to write a weekly column for the Whitefish Pilot. I often won the Montana Newspaper Association’s annual competition for the Hungry Horse News, but it did not surprise me when Heidi beat me for the “most humorous” column.

Like her dad, Heidi also wrote serious things, and her mother, Iris, just found an example from Thanksgiving 1992. I’m going to rerun it:

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So much to say thanks for,

so seldom we actually do it

I heard myself complain today

How hard I work, how little I play,

How difficult life can sometimes be

When money is tight and nothing is free.

So I sat on my couch and turned on the set

Grabbed the remote and tried to forget

The bills and ills and the woes and the strife

Of motherhood, wifehood, adulthood and life.

Self-pity is such that the longer you stew

The more the thing strengthens its hold on you,

But as luck would have it, that day on TV

The fare was far worse than the burdens on me.

People were dying, it seemed, by the packs

Of drug abuse, child abuse, gunshots and crack.

Nations were raging war with each other

Because they’d forgotten o love their own brother.

The homeless and helpless were trying to cope

And children were starving, eyes hollow of hope.

I turned off the tube and sat with the taint

Of shame in myself for my shallow complaint.

I looked out the window at the snow on the trees,

The fire in my hearth, the kids at my knees

And I whispered a fervent prayer of Thanksgiving

For the riches I have and the life I am living.

And should I catch myself complain

Of housework, bills or life again,

I hope the prayer of thanks I said

Will instantly come to my head

And spare me the need to compare myself

With others who suffer, just to know my true wealth.

———

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.