I recently read a lengthy apology from a local small business owner who had to shutter the business for a few weeks to deal with some health and family concerns. 

My immediate reaction may surprise you: I got angry. 

I wasn’t angry at the business owner but at the host of societal pressures putting her in the position to apologize for doing the two most important things in life: Taking care of yourself and taking care of your family. 

A disclaimer is warranted here, or perhaps a few of them. 

I’m related to this particular small business owner, and my fondness for her almost certainly colored my reaction. How could it not? 

I’m also a small business owner who was raised by a small business owner who was raised by — you guessed it — a small business owner.

I grew up with phone calls to the business on Thanksgiving afternoons and at 10 o’clock on a Saturday night. I’ve finished a session, turned my cell phone ringer back on, and found a client has called me 4 times in the space of an hour to ask a question that was — very definitely — not an emergency. I’ve seen the furious social media posts firing off on the local service professionals who didn’t return a phone call on a Sunday afternoon, been on the receiving end of equally furious emails from would-be clients who feel ignored when their initial outreach had somehow landed in my spam box. 

These aren’t things that we’re supposed to talk about as small business owners, I know. 

As the sayings go, the customer is always right, and there’s always another business willing to do what we can’t ... or won’t. 

There’s no question that we business owners owe our customers a healthy dose of gratitude and respect. You support us financially and otherwise. You allow us to do what we do, often things that we loved so much we turned into ventures to support our families. 

For me, it’s an honor to be invited into people’s lives to turn moments into memories as their photographer. I know most small business owners have similar feelings about their own particular talents and services. We are grateful. We have high levels of respect for our customers. 

And in Sullivan County, small businesses make up 99.8 percent of the establishments in the county, representing a whopping 25 per 1,000 residents. To put that in perspective, the sheer concentration of small businesses in Sullivan County puts us at 14th out of New York State’s 62 counties (according to US Census Bureau data). 

We are your neighbors, your friends, your cousins...and sometimes we just need a little break to take care of ourselves and our families.