This Sunday I visited a holiday fair that specialized in charities that needed help for the holidays: thanksgiving and Christmas.<\/p>\n
My daughter said, “Hold these.” She tore off to the bathroom and I tried to get out of the way.<\/p>\n
“Would you like a chair?” a woman asked.<\/p>\n
“No, I’m good.” I could only see the back of her display from where I sat. “What are you here for?”<\/p>\n
“This is to help people with clothing and shelter in emergencies.”<\/p>\n
“Wouldn’t any time you needed shelter or clothing be an emergency?”<\/p>\n
“Sometimes a woman might go to the hospital early and not have an infant car seat or a place to take the baby home. We help with that.”<\/p>\n
I was silent a moment.<\/p>\n
“You know, ” I said to the woman. “There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve been pretty close to the edge.”<\/p>\n
I was remembering when I was first married to my first husband. I had no margin at all. I had quit my job as cook for a daycare, so I could go to college full time. I missed that job as cook because when I had it I could take extra food home with me.<\/p>\n
It was a YMCA daycare, and most of the food I cooked with came from a food bank. I never knew what food they’d have, so meal planning was tough. There was always some kind of leftovers I got to take home, so my $7.50-an-hour paycheck didn’t have to pay for food at least.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t quit my job cold turkey. I had found part time work. Three part-time jobs, as a matter of fact. Their hours still left me time to take classes. But I had to buy my own food.<\/p>\n
It was after Christmas, and we’d still had some things left over from the cook job in our cupboards. Good thing, because we had run out of paycheck and with a couple days to go until the next one.<\/p>\n
We had flour, salt, and a few bags of leftover stuffing mix. And food coloring.<\/p>\n
The stuffing mix tasted okay. Then we had nothing but flour and salt. We made homemade noodles.<\/p>\n
With blue food coloring. We pretended they were some kind of space alien food.<\/p>\n
I looked at the woman next to me, “I have learned a few things since those times, and I have thought that the world had changed and become easier to survive in. But I’m not sure if the world has changed so much as I have.”<\/p>\n
She said, “It’s probably that you have changed.”<\/p>\n
When I think about those times, and how long they lasted and how they should never have happened in the first place, I feel shame and I remember all the ways that I was a victim of….. what?<\/p>\n
Exploitation?<\/p>\n
Abandonment?<\/p>\n
It doesn’t even matter what, now that I think about it. Sometimes things happen in this adventure of life.<\/p>\n
I know what they mean when they talk about food insecurity. And I could give tips on all the ways that I survived being poor and cast out. I could be proud of how I climbed my way out.<\/p>\n
I am.<\/p>\n
And I can see how, if you’re working hard in your 8th month of pregnancy and counting paychecks until the one that lets you afford the car seat you have to have<\/p>\n
and then you’re stopped cold because baby came early and there aren’t going to be any paychecks for a while<\/p>\n
you could use a little help.<\/p>\n
I’m pretty grateful that things worked out for me. I’m thankful for my car, and my house and my job.<\/p>\n
I’m thankful for my savings account and my coat and my boots.<\/p>\n
It’s a good time to share some of what I’ve got with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Sunday I visited a holiday fair that specialized in charities that needed help for the holidays: thanksgiving and Christmas. My daughter said, “Hold these.” She tore off to the bathroom and I tried to get out of the way. … Continue reading