I’m a 5th generation Texan. To find a relative who has endured cold like we are currently enduring in the Lone Star State I’d have to dig three levels back to my Great Grandfather’s. I’m told this is the coldest on record since 1912. “Pa,” as I knew him was born in 1900. He was poor. In 1912 he had no running water. He had no electricity. He had not internet. He had no social media. There might have been a few books in the home but very few.

I recently read “Endurance” the true story of Earnest Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica. It was one of the greatest stories of the human capacity to endure hellish cold conditions the likes of which I could ever imagine. Correction-I honestly can’t imagine what they went through.

Shackleton and his crew were stranded in the Arctic for over a year. They didn’t bathe, were half starved, had little to no water at times, lived on the meat of their own dogs, seal blubber and penguins. Much of the time they lived on a large floating block of ice hoping it didn’t crack lest they fall through.

I’m currently finishing up the fictional classic, “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. This is a story about a “dust bowl” era family from Oklahoma leaving everything, piling multiple generations into an old truck with all they possessed to head west to California. Were they seeking gold? No. They were hoping to get jobs as fruit pickers. So poor they had to camp on the side of the road on the way. They had to resort to burying the patriarch of the family in a grave they dug by the highway.

In the book Steinbeck gives an amazingly harsh and grim look of America during the Great Depression. It amazes me how great something so small as a piece of cured pig can be.

As we make our way through this once in a 100 year ice storm I’m glad I’m reading these books. It has kept me in check. When I want to complain about being without a normal life necessity I’m reminded just what the human can actually endure.

If you are struggling, and many people are, I recommend these reads. Not for the typical “be grateful for what you have” cliche-instead for a reminder of just what we can endure if pushed. You and I have so much more resilience than we know. Be safe. Stay warm. Show your grit. We got this!