One for the road

This week’s edition is a bittersweet one for me as it marks my last as the publisher of the Gonzales Inquirer, a position I have been blessed to hold for the past four years and a month.

I didn’t know what to expect when Betty and I first came to town in late August 2021. The community was just trying to get back its footing as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to show signs of subsiding. Gonzales was raring to get back to normalcy, including holding the Come and Take It Celebration after it had been canceled in 2020.

I am thankful for our subscribers, our readers and those in the community who welcomed us with open arms and entrusted us to inform them, to tell their stories, to chronicle their history and represent them. You made it possible for us to take this newspaper to greater heights than it had reached previously, including back-to-back Sweepstakes Awards in the Texas Press Association Better Newspaper Contest.

My goal when I came here was to give you the best small-town paper I could with what resources I had at my disposal and I feel like I was able to follow through on that mission.

As I have gotten older and, hopefully, a little wiser, I have begun to assess things differently and I have realized that we have a finite amount of time on this planet and that we must budget how we wish to spend those remaining precious moments we are given.
For me, that means wanting to spend more time with my 88-year-old mother, who lives in Dallas. She had a serious fall last year and broke a hip for the second time in three years. She is doing better now and is getting around with help from a walker, but it scared me to think of life without her and how horrible it would be if I didn’t try to be around her as much as I can in her golden years.

Her health crisis came almost one year after Betty fell and broke her hip and later had to have a followup surgery to redo the repair after she developed sepsis. To have the two most important women in my life go through these struggles has been difficult.

My own health has had its challenges as well. Some of you may not know I got a very bad case of COVID-19 in January 2022. It was so bad that Betty nearly had to have me admitted to the hospital — I could barely breathe and was hallucinating. Last year, I had to have all of my teeth removed due to complications from my GERD (acid reflux). It was humbling and eye-opening and set me on a course to try to improve my situation.

I went on Zepbound in December 2024 and since that time I have lost 150 pounds. I also have been getting more active and looking after my mental health by trying to reduce the triggers that cause my overeating. My biggest trigger is stress and my biggest source of stress unfortunately comes from battling to put out the newspaper every week.

Also, we have been living with one of our sons for the past two years in Gonzales and an opportunity arose for him to buy a brand-new home in North Texas — just one hour away from my mom. Another of our sons, who got married in May, announced he would be moving from Houston to North Texas as well — again just an hour away.

Betty and I discussed all of this and decided that the best course of action would be to close out this chapter of our lives in Gonzales and to focus on the new one that lies ahead. We are sad to be leaving but we will cherish the friendships we made and be proud of what we accomplished.

One of my favorite actors of all time is Robin Williams and I think often of the move “Mrs. Doubtfire.” At the end of the movie, his character Daniel has gotten his own TV show in the guise of Mrs. Doubtfire and “she” is answering a letter from a little girl about her family no longer living together and trying to reassure little Katie that everything will be okay.

And I remember well what was said: “There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. And some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. And some live in separate homes, in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country — and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, months … even years at a time. But if there's love, dear… those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.”

Gonzales County, you will be in our hearts forever. We may no longer be there, but we are still family.

And in the final words of Robin Williams from that movie: “All my love to you, poppet, you're going to be all right … bye-bye.”