The first things I have on my mind today are safety and security. It isn’t fun to have your email account hacked. It’s frightening, maddening, troublesome and a pain in the derriere. Should it happen to you, just know that everyone on your contact list will call you. Your ring tone will drive you insane. Furthermore, if your contact list isn’t up-to-date you won’t be able to send a message to your current contacts because some of your contacts don’t exist anymore (although they are still entered in your list of contacts). Whew! Now you need to go back and clean out your contact list, which is another pain in the derriere. It’s the snowball effect. One thing leads to another.

This happened to me a few weeks ago. The time spent changing passwords, updating lists and apologizing for the inconvenience is unbelievable. Take it from someone who’s been there, done that. Keep your identity safe and secure by keeping your lists, IDs and passwords updated.

The second thing I have on my mind today is necessities vs. treasures. Yesterday I was talking with my friend of 52 years who lives in Arkansas. She is now 88 years old and still living alone in her home. Her three sons helped move their dad into an Alzheimer’s care facility a couple of months ago. When she visits he asks her who she is. She reminds him that she is his wife. He responds, “You are? What’s your name”?

When I called, one of her sons and his wife were there to assist her in cleaning out both her and her husband’s home offices. She told me she was having a hard time letting go of the treasures they have accumulated through the years. She said they weren’t just treasures, but necessities. Each one holds a special memory of bygone days.

So when do our treasures become so valuable that they are necessities in our life? Perhaps we are afraid to let go of them because we treasure the memories attached to each of them. They become necessary to our very existence.

Her intention is to live in the home they built and have shared for the past 45 years. It sits on a hill overlooking a spacious yard that they landscaped themselves and have cared for all these years. It’s a treasured place for they spent many hours together in that environment. Memories are treasurers. Treasured memories are hard to leave behind when it becomes necessary to downsize. It’s another pain in the derriere.

A very important thing I have on my mind is weather. This past week we’ve experienced Mother Nature’s vengeance as she unloaded her wrath on the most beautiful part of Texas. We can sit and mope and ask why such bad things happen to good people. The “whys” will haunt us. But I would rather ask how? How can better preparations be made to avoid such catastrophes? Coming together to install up-to-date warning sirens seems to be a good first step to recovery. Prayers only find solutions when we put actions along with them.

Springtime and summer in the Hill Country of Texas is the most beautiful time of year with the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush in bloom. The scars left from the recent flooding will take time to heal. But healing will come as we cherish the memories of those who were lost. There will be scars left upon our hearts and the landscape but how we deal with the memories will become necessary to our very existence and the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush will bloom again all over East Texas.

Email Betty Heath at begeheath690@aol.com.