REALITY

      On just about every talk show these days, someone is discussing the K-family and their misadventures. Their show is known as "reality" TV.  Tell me what is real when there are at least 30 people behind the cameras; sound, photographers of all kinds, make up, hairdressers, folks, that is not reality!  I have never watched one of the K-people and the only reality show I watch is Dancing With The Stars and one of those K's wormed their way in there.
      Reality is our niece, Claudia, the mother of six, whose husband is a dairy farmer and she is an ER nurse.  They are planning a wedding for one daughter and two other daughters are expecting babies.  The youngest daughter is a senior in high school.  Still, she and several nurses found time to go to Joplin,  and help out after the tornado.  Meds, mayhem and manure, that's part of her reality.
      Our daughter, Angela, is also married to a farmer, a grain farmer.  While he is driving a tractor or combine and dealing with drought or flooding - depending on the season, she is flying around the world in a capacity as a marketing manager for a manufacturing company.  
When I talked to her Thursday, she was in Florida, just after Easter, she was in Brazil.  She is active in a local theater group and on the Arts Council for Rockford, Il.
        Our daughter, Alissa, the  sales manager for a tree company in San Diego has taken his sons and and her sons and put together our family.  A full time job, a sports mom, an avid gardener and every night, dinner on the table.
      Dear friend, Sue, is dealing with the  loss of her best friend to lung cancer, the week after her dad was diagnosed with the same disease and her mother had her last chemo treatment for breast cancer.  Sue cleans houses for a living.   She is one of the most kind, caring people I know and her worst habit is always having time for others.
         Real life doesn't have cameras around unless you're taking pictures of one of your kids playing ball or a beautiful sunset.
         Recently, the television networks took off several long running soap operas and replaced them with reality shows.  I couldn't believe it.  When we were newly married and our lives were washing diapers, folding diapers and changing diapers, not necessarily in that order, we lived for those soaps.  After we had watched the adventures of Bob, Lisa and Penny, we would get on the phone and discuss what had happened. Their lives became the bright spots in our lives.  Wait a minute, that's what people do who watch reality shows.  Soooo, I admit, the more things change, they stay the same.