Calamity, Meet Jane

Mama just made it feel like an adventure.

There was a time growing up when my family needed somewhere cheaper to live.

And cheaper we found.

There was just one small problem.

There wasn’t a house.

There was a shed.

My stepfather had built it, and to be fair, nobody built the thing thinking, “Yep, five-star accommodations. Let’s move the family in.”

It was a shed.

No bathroom. No shower. No regular hot water.

But we had to do what we had to do.

And here’s the funny thing:

I don’t remember being miserable.

I remember the woods—but I don’t remember them being scary.

I remember giggling while we washed dishes outside, feeling like we were the girls from Little House on the Prairie.

All we were missing was the getup, I reckon.

I remember Mama taking this tiny handmade shed and somehow turning it into our little cottage in the woods.

We made the best of baths in the cow trough.

Yes.

The cow trough.

😂

Then at some point we scored one of those solar-powered shower bags that heated water in the sun.

And let me tell you, when your previous bathing arrangement involved cold water and livestock equipment?

Baby, that’s luxury.

Eventually, we got a working bathroom and shower.

Little by little, things got better.

But when I think back on that time, I don’t immediately think about everything we didn’t have.

I remember having fun.

And now that I’m a mama myself, that memory hits differently.

Because I can look back with grown-woman eyes and realize:

It probably wasn’t fun for her.

I can imagine there were worries I never knew about.

Bills I didn’t see.

Conversations I didn’t hear.

Questions about what came next that weren’t mine to carry.

I was just a kid washing dishes and pretending I was on Little House on the Prairie.

And maybe that’s one of the greatest things my mama ever did for us.

She let us be kids.

She took circumstances that could’ve felt scary and somehow turned them into an adventure.

She made a shed feel like a cottage.

She made a cow trough feel like a funny story we’d tell someday.

She couldn’t magically change what we had.

But she could change what it felt like to be there.

And all these years later, raising a child of my own, I finally understand what I couldn’t back then:

She couldn’t control the circumstances. But she could control what home felt like.

And she made sure we had one.

I reckon that’s something worth remembering.

— Jane

Grace for the mess. Grit for the rest.