Another cross-post -

[kyburg]

Because if you thought I'd ever forget, you'd be wrong.

Nearly thirty years ago I was a single mother of three. Since getting child support orders enforced was damn near impossible I applied for and qualified to receive food stamps.

I would take the three kids (by bus) to the grocery. I had a list of what I needed to buy to feed them for the next 2-4 days, that being the limit I could carry by myself and still manage the kids. I knew, to the penny, how much I could spend.

I would shop, check out and count my change. My food was bought with the change.

One day a cashier sneered at me for being so ‘dis-organized’ I always came through the line twice. I lost it. I told him, at some length and with considerable volume, what my reason for coming through his line twice each trip was and ended up sobbing.

In the utter silence that followed an older woman stepped forward and began putting items on the belt; fresh fruit, chicken, bakery bread, band aids, and shampoo. She looked at the man behind her.

“What you got in there this child and her babies can’t afford? Thank your Maker and ante up. I’ll drive her home, don’t be shy about it bein’ too much. All of you, lookin’ down your noses at her, what you got she can’t afford? Try sparin’ a little somethin’ besides a nasty look.”

I ended up taking home nearly two hundred dollars in food and sundry items. I cried all the way home, while she drove. My kids ate grapes out of the bag like they were candy. I tried to tell her thank you and she shook her head.

“Just you promise me you won’t ever forget what that felt like, to have somone look nasty at you for bein’ poor. I kept that promise myself today. You keep it in your turn.”

--

I'm the third of four children raised by one parent, after my father accidentally killed himself before I seven years old.

Mom got her nursing credentials during WWII. She went back to school, renewed her nursing license and went back to work. She was lucky. So were we.

I grew up wearing anyone's hand-me downs that fit, came home from school to find the power turned off (gas, electric or both) and I stepped inside clothing stores twice a year. Once at back to school (and some years, not even then) and perhaps before summer began. Toy stores? Not at all. We would truck into Fedco in San Bernardino, and since Mom had tapped out the checking account (I don't know how, buying food d'ya think?), we often went home without anything because they wouldn't approve her checks anymore.

Mom had a job. She didn't qualify for any assistance. There was SSI and VA benefits, which probably kept a car in the garage. Barely.

My sister felt deprived; I just found ways around it. I've been complimented on my ability to "think outside the box." Frankly, every time I went to the box it was empty; why would I keep trying to work with an empty box?

The first two got scholarships, by the time I got there, most of them were gone. (Thank you, Reagan.) But we do have a doctorate, three master degrees and four bachelor degrees among the four of us. We drove cars that were only jettisoned when they caught fire or froze in place and wouldn't move any more. I've lived in some pretty "interesting" places, lemme tellya.

Complain? Well, you could, I guess. Wouldn't have changed anything. It was what it was.

..

People wonder why I pick up the check so much. And pass my good luck with shoes along.

It's not much. But when you have nothing - the little things nobody cares about can mean so much if somebody thinks of it.

Comments

[forestdweller.livejournal.com]

Hear hear and thank you. Whenever I have any extra. Left over lunch, entra gifts, find cheap stuff that ends up not fitting me, extra change, leftovers from savings, I pass it along. I remember what it is like to not be able to buy new clothes, to have to worry about my next meal (though that didn't last long thank divinity).

I can't imagine NOT doing this.

Thank you for linking this story, too.

[cecerose.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this...

[secanth.livejournal.com]

*Applauds* So very true. When I am in the position to help others, I will do so. So many people have been good to me, helped me, during the times I've needed help that it's something I'm honor bound to pass on when I can.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I remember the punch line from "Walk the Line":

GUARD: Mr. Cash?
[Johnny, deep in thought, contemplates a table saw and remembers...]
GUARD: Mr. Cash?
[Johnny gives him a look]
GUARD: Might I suggest you refrain from playing any tunes that remind them, the inmates that is, that they are in prison?
CASH [in a voice with an edge like the blade on the table saw]: You think they forgot??

Hell, no, they didn't forget. Neither did I.

[sweetmegumi.livejournal.com]

I grew up with a family of six kids and money was always tight (and sometimes not there at all). There would be times when we only ate rice and salt. I will always remember the hard times and always try to help out those less fortuante than me now.

Thank you.

[lord-keeper.livejournal.com]

Thank you.....thank you for sharing the other woman's story (perhaps I should post my own somewhat simular story as well), thank you for sharing your own story as well. But most of all thank you for the shoes...they have helped me with the problems I was having with my feet, helped me do batter at work and to put in more hours at work so I can take better care of my family. Thank you for working so hard as to be able to "pay it forward" so to speak. You are indeed a very special lately and I think of you with every step I take...wether it be a step at work to help support myself and my family, or a step at gencon to have fun with my family, or to take a step to help someone else introuble, or even (as happened once since I got these magic shoes of yours) to help someone that is hurt, or even to step up to someone having a bad day and tell them a joke to brighten thier day....but you are responsible for my being able to make these steps. For that, for myself, my family and many people you never even know about, I thank you for everything you have gone through and everything you are...I thank you for being....you. Your a very special person and will have a special place in my heart.....

Thank you.

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

yer awesome

Word.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Such a nice thing to read, thanks.
Besides passing along things I'm not using and contributing to local soup kitchen and other charities I know are effective, I also try to agitate for people to vote in favor of social programs that work, too. A whole lot of good people owe their survival to things like Head Start and food stamps--and they eventually became contributing taxpayers as a result, instead of becoming sick people on the street, or just simply dead people.

[yasha-chan.livejournal.com]

My mom was a single parent for my entire life. We'd been so poor we couldn't afford milk, we'd had our times we wondered where we were going to live. Being poor is a crime everywhere I guess, but it's really noticed in places like Santa Monica in LA... the gulf between the rich and poor.

That's why we donate money to (ethical) relief funds and whenever someone on the street asks us for a buck of two for food, we go buy them a sandwhich and something to drink. We've been there and won't forget it.

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

You're awesome like that, Donna.

*hugs you*

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Hey, that reminds me. We need to get together for portraiture soon - when are you available?

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

Sometime Sunday (tomorrow) sound good for you? Gimme a call.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

My family got kicked out of a house and escaped homelessness by doubling up with another poor family.

Years later, my parents managed to buy a $10,000 house from the owner, who was my mom's boss and set up a payroll deduction because they could not get credit. No, I did not leave out a zero. 10K for a 4 bedroom Victorian house with basement. What a dive. Holes in the interior walls, bad plumbing, bad roof, bad furnace, mold issues, and a missing coal door for the basement, meaning anyone could slide down the coal shoot and come in. Kitchen sink was draining into back yard and then leaking into basement. We've been fixing it up since day one. Every single time I go there I still end up fixing some thing or the other.

[mhnicholson.livejournal.com]

Poverty is not easy to forget, and it is hard to understand for those who haven't experienced it first hand. I came from some dire circumstances, and the experience colors my vision all the time. There is something about food and safety being questions rather than assumptions that adds focus.

My children have never known poverty; I've been very fortunate in college. I can see their eyes, however, that when they look at the poor, they don't understand internally and can't relate. I can teach them the behaviors of respect, but the deeper feelings like empathy and compassion have to come from somewhere inside.