I just finished catching up on When Calls the Heart. Truthfully, I watched the first season when it first aired, and loved it, but then as often happens, I got distracted by other shows and didn't go back to catch up until a few days ago.
This past week has been hard for me, and through grieving for my grandma, I have found myself just wanting to sit quietly, and either reading or binge watching a show. I figured now was as good a time as any, to catch up on When Calls the Heart.
I'm so glad I did, and I just finished the Season 5 finale a few minutes ago.
I bawled.
It's so strange how invested we become in certain shows and their characters, and Jack and Elizabeth were it for me. I found them to be so beautiful together, in every sense. I watched from episode to episode, always waiting for them to finally be married and start a life. And then bam!!!
I'm not going to give out details because there may be some of you out there who have yet to finish watching. The only thing I will say is that it's going to take some time for me to digest what I just watched and hopefully be ready for Season 6 when it airs, because as it stands right this second, I'm not sure I want to continue with the series.
The reason I am posting, is not just to talk about this beautiful family centered show, though I feel it deserves all the mentions, respect and love in the world.....but mainly because as hard as times were back in those days, I still believe that I would have been much happier living in a small frontier town than in the here and now of today.
The sense of community, family and the lessons learned, paired with the simplicity of life and the honest caring of your neighbor, is what I think is missing from our world today.
Everything about the show, calls to me. Women dressed beautifully and took such pride in their appearance. The small homes, the gorgeous kitchens (yes simple and rough around the edges, but for me, the epitome of a homely kitchen), the meals, the town schools and the way everyone pulled together through hard times. It makes me long for that.
To be honest with you, I have no clue who any of my neighbors are, I never see them and I doubt they see me. Everyone keeps to themselves, no one really knows what the next person is going through or if they need a helping hand.
And so I am asked often why I bother with these shows, why I like watching times gone by when things may have seemed simple but in some ways were terribly hard. My answer is always the same, because for some reason I find myself completely pulled to this way of life, to the way things were, to the fact that even though times may have been troubled, people dealt with them and lived through them surrounded by others who cared about them, through communities who came together in times of need and did everything they could to see their friends overcome whatever it was they were facing.
Call me old fashioned, tell me I was born in the wrong century or maybe even call me naive, I'm ok with that because at the end of the day, as much as I love my life and my family, I would go back in time, without a second thought, in the blink of an eye.
But since that is not possible, I must contend myself with beautiful family shows like When Calls the Heart, Little House on the Prairie, or Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea, even Outlander and Poldark.
