With the holidays behind us, I couldn’t help but wonder just how many of these same people will be back at my doorstep one day, hat in hand. Everyone in my life, including family, friends, and probably my neighbors know that I’m a prepper … and that’s my fault. If I could do things over again, I would’ve kept quiet about it all or, at least, I would’ve tried.
In fact, once upon a time I would’ve been hoppin’ mad whenever my friends and family suggested they’re going to show up at my doorstep when times get tough. I would’ve told them that this wasn’t a good plan for a number of reasons, least of which is my insistence that they don’t do so.
These days, with many years behind me since I’ve started my preparedness journey, I’m seeing things a bit different. Truth be told, I’d be happy to have some people show up. After all, my back hurts more often than not, I can’t work all day long like I used to, and I certainly can’t defend my family on my own.
But there’s the rub: some people would be welcome. As it stands now, there are six of us who live under my roof, including my elderly in-laws, my mother, my youngest son and my wife. My wife’s best friend and her husband also life in our backyard in a trailer, so that’s essentially eight people to care for, but this is only the beginning.
My wife’s sister, who live about thirty minutes away, and her entire family would be welcome no matter how I feel about it in the moment. They’re my family, too, so it wouldn’t take much convincing for me to take them in, but I’d complain about it the entire time. The real problem is that they have three children under the age of thirteen, so there’s not a lot of work to be had out of them, at least, not initially. My wife has other siblings who live across the state in St. Louis, too. I wouldn’t mind them coming as they’re all hard workers and we would probably get along well enough, but they wouldn’t be brining much in the way of supplies, which isn’t ideal.
Where the problems start to truly arise are when others might show up, including good friends of mine. While I wouldn’t mind them showing up (they’re smart, healthy, and would be assets in some ways) it’s all the other people who may tag along as a result that is concerning. For instance, our good friends might choose to bring their extended families, which could be too numerous to count.
There are plenty of other people around the city that my wife may want to help, including a number of friends of hers. These people would be far more difficult for me to want to help, so who knows how that conversation may go.
My mother-in-law could be Mother Teresa reincarnated to a point; she’s always trying to give and help people that I don’t know how she does it. Normally, I don’t care because it gives her purpose and keeps her out of my hair, but when times get tough, this mindset just won’t work. The problem is that she knows so many people, and it wouldn’t surprise me that she would happily want to help all of them, even if only a little bit. But only a little bit here and only a little bit there adds up quickly. This will definitely be a problem.
And I haven’t even discussed my neighbors. The few we know are good people. In fact, I would want to help them if for no other reason than they have skills and knowledge that I don’t. But, again, who knows what baggage they may bring along in the form of extended family. That said, they’re all fairly down to earth people, so they may be more prepared than me!
If you’re keeping track, the number of people in my small sphere of influence could number as small as a dozen (my own family and my sister-in-law’s family) to dozens. A dozen people may not seem like a lot, but trying to figure out where they’re all going to sleep, how everyone will be fed, who’s in charge of doing what chores, and how long or if/when they may no longer be welcome will take some figuring out. I’m sure things won’t go smoothly no matter how much we talk things out.
As much as I want to blame my wife and her mother’s heart of gold demeanor for this potential predicament when SHTF, I’m a softie to a point, too. I simply can’t imagine not helping out friends and family if I could. Now, I may complain about it the entire time, but I’d definitely want to help. After all, I wouldn’t want to survive a bad situation only to discover those I cared about didn’t survive or, at minimum, that they suffered greatly when they didn’t need to.
Of course, there’s the flip side of that coin: how would I feel if my closest family suffers because we did too much for others? That is a possibility, isn’t it?
I don’t have a good answer. It feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. So, all I can do is to continue to prepare my household as much as I can and hope and pray that times will never get that tough. Even so, I continue to get this feeling that things are going to get worse. I just can’t see how this country survives with the way things are going both domestically and abroad. Well, maybe the country survive, but it’s going to be a mess getting through the chaos that will ensue when the sheeple are permanently removed from the government teat.
Now, I’m depressed again. 🙁
Thankfully, when I get down about the world, my wife reminds me that we need to leave such concerns to God. If that’s the case, then I sure hope He’s listening when we need Him most.
Leave a Reply