Over the course of the past four years, The Arkadelphian has amassed a fairly sizable audience for a smalltown “newspaper”. Our readers are a mix of locals, transplants and those who once called this place home. People rely on us for local news.
We strive to put out local content five days a week. Most weekends are set aside for family time and household chores. Our readers don’t seem to mind that we take some time for ourselves. Fortunately, you all have been kind enough to allow us, without question, to take several days off for a family emergency that stopped us in our tracks.
Our father was hospitalized on the evening of Wednesday, May 28. His diagnosis and the procedures that followed are his own business, so we’ll refrain from telling his story.
He spent a total of 12 nights at CHI/St. Vincent Hospital in Hot Springs. During the first half of this wild rodeo, we’d drop in for a visit after finishing up our work. The second half, however, was different: dire and demanding. We dropped everything, and spent our nighttime hours with our Old Man, relieving our stepmother from the day shifts and being an extra set of eyes and ears for the attentive nursing staff. We returned home daily for sleep, then repeated the process.
As creatures of habit, changes to our routine are stressful. Yet we adapted quickly. We walked more (one way to break in a new pair of shoes is to frequent the halls of CHI). We slept less. We ate Cheetos for breakfast (and sometimes for lunch and dinner). We had heart-to-heart conversations with relatives we rarely speak to. We researched health conditions we’d never heard of. We prayed in our own way. We cried. We put work aside.
One thing that continues to puzzle us is how to convey to our audience that we’re taking time away from our role of keeping the community abreast of information. We can’t call in to work. The Arkadelphian is a one-man show, operated by a self-motivated reporter who sets his own deadlines and daily story count. Because there are statistics to prove it, we know that people visit this website every day in search of the latest scoop. Some of our readers are dear friends, but most are strangers to us — strangers who, frankly, care not about our personal life and only want the news.
At the end of the day, despite not fulfilling our own deadlines and content creation, we knew last week where we were needed more: taking care of family. Thank you, Dear Reader, for understanding. The news can wait.
The good news is that we’re back in the saddle again, at least for now.
We may even treat ourselves to a decent breakfast.
Joel Phelps is editor of arkadelphian.com. Contact him at editor@arkadelphian.com.