Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, January 15, 2023.

In Week 2 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for Joyce Jackson.

2023 started with a bang.

Northeast Mississippi recently experienced near zero temperatures that ostensibly caused high load on the electrical grid due to home heating, which in turn led to the power companies performing emergency rolling blackouts.

The repeated off – on of electricity (and what I suspect were actually brown outs, i.e. irregular reductions in voltage) were killing even some of the hardiest of power backup equipment and taking systems offline. As an IT administrator, I could watch a dashboard and see network devices dropping like flies.

I'm getting swamped with emergency service requests.

Then my Mom sends the text, "Happy New Year, my dear! I have COVID."

Yeah. Happy freakin' New Year.

I don't have a clue how I'm going to help my mom in Jackson, two hours away, without getting the people in my house sick and also be able to take care of these businesses whose operations were interrupted or completely offline!

I call Mom and she tells me that her neighbor, Joyce Jackson, happened to hear that she was sick and was checking in on her. Not only that, Mrs. Jackson cooked and brought my mom food and made sure she had a home cooked meal every day!

My Mom is now much better and returned to work almost a week ago. But, when I called her today she mentioned that she had just previously spoken with Mrs. Jackson who continues to call daily to check on her.

I've written before about what a special community my neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi is. It's people like Mrs. Joyce Jackson that make it that way. I cannot express how thankful I am for her kindness, her character and her humanity. Not only was it a tremendous help to our family, it was deeply encouraging. I'm grateful. #52WoG

Note: Pictured here are my wonderful neighbors, Mrs. Jackson in red, with her daughter, Christie Jackson, and grandson, Matthew Jackson, who our family just happened to run into during his campus visit to Mississippi State.