November 2023: Janet Muirhead Hill

“Pretty Good Odds for Living”

I’m totally and uncomfortably aware that my odds for living several more years outweigh those of people of all ages in some other parts of the world. If I were in Gaza, for example. I would be preparing to die. If I were in Syria, the same. How about an Argentine mother, fleeing north in an effort to save her babies from horrendous suffering and starvation? Every step of the journey is hazardous, and perhaps the most threatening is when almost there, at the border crossing into the United States with the opposite of a welcoming asylum? No here I am in the middle of a free country, living the dream, with no one bothering me, my husband or children. I’d be free if not for the compassion I feel for the earthquake victims, the victims of war, the downtrodden, starving, children around the world, some without even clean water to drink. I don’t feel free. I feel that if I can’t help, what is the use of my odds for living?

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com