...6 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
15.March.2019

This may be long, and you may not like it.

You may not agree with what I say or how I say it.

You may not like that I am so brash in sharing my own experience.

You may not like the way it makes you feel.

But please afford me the courtesy of reading it through anyway...and watch the accompanying video. Please allow your heart to be touched, just enough so that you raise your children to be empathetic.

I have been broken. I have been left. I have scrambled to recover from violence and loss and pick up the pieces of a shattered life.

I have worked 80 hour weeks only to see a negative balance in my account when my ex-husband drained the funds despite the multiple copies of my restraining order being on file at the bank.

I have used food stamps to feed my child. I have visited food pantries to subsidize my income, when I made too much to qualify but not enough to cover the bills and his therapies and still be able to fill his belly. I have gone without. Without breakfast and lunch and dinner for days, filling myself up on sugar water and praying I wouldn't faint. I have used the same tea bag in my cup four times, dipping it in and pulling it out quickly to save some of that flavor for the next cup. I have watered down a can of soup and made it stretch into four meals. I have rationed our food and our medicine and our vitamins. I have grabbed handfuls of ketchup packets and creamers and sugar packets when buying 1 single burger and stretched them into sustenance. I have gratefully and with no pride left in me accepted bags of groceries from a friend and felt I could not look her in the eye in my shame. I have patched our clothing and our socks. I have heated water on the stove so my son could bathe when I couldn't afford to keep the hot water heater running. I have tucked him into bed in layers and winter gloves and hats when I couldn't keep the heat on. I have been humbled and humiliated and desperate.

I have sent my son to school with lunches that meant I would not eat that day.

He? He has had his lunch bag stolen from him. Thrown away. He has had it grabbed from his 6 year old hands and kicked down the hallway. He has had a student dump their drink, purposely, right into his food. He has had another middle schooler throw garbage at his table and into his meal.

He has come home and told me I need to send more food in with him because his friend doesn't get enough to eat at lunch. He has asked me to send in the snacks his friends prefer because he likes to be able to share them. He has asked me to call his friend's parents and tell them to buy a better lunch plan because the 1 piece of pizza isn't enough to fill a teenage boy. (I called the guidance counselor instead.)

He has helped me sponsor a child with his allowance. He has agreed to reduce our budget so we can help subsidize the needs of my step-children, his half-siblings.

He has lived, as have I, on both sides of the equation.

Our pantry is full these days. Our fridge is stocked with healthy foods and unhealthy treats. When his toes dig a hole into a sock, I turn it into a rag for spill clean-up...and I buy the new socks.

I have two step-children now. Apparently I did for some years now, as they are 12 and 9. But it's only recently that I have been made aware of, and stepped into the responsibility that comes with, that title. They have grown up in neglect and in poverty and in the abuse that their parents create. They would go without breakfast were it not for the free breakfast program at their school. Each week, come Friday, they are handed a bag of processed food to take home so that there will be something for them to eat over the weekend. I have heard that my step-daughter has complained that the free lunch at school doesn't begin to fill the gnawing hole. I have heard that my step-son, when given free reign, will eat until he makes himself sick. I have sent money and giftcards and boxes of food and treats and clothing.

If you've made it this far in the reading, I wonder how you feel?

Are you shocked by my admissions?

Embarrassed for me?

Does my experience or his or theirs make you uncomfortable? Do you wonder what I did wrong to earn that part of my life?

Are you reminding yourself that you would never-could never-sink so low?

Are you thinking you are better than that?

Are you reading this, jaw gone slack, thinking that I should never have had the nerve to put these words to page?

Donate that canned good. Fulfill that angel tree wish. Fill up useable purses and backpacks with supplies and turn them over to foster-care programs. Buy that extra box of diapers or tampons or toilet paper and take it to that shelter. Send in the extra snack or snacks or lunches. Encourage your school to keep a "free" food station for children whose parents couldn't or didn't send in lunch. Check in with the guidance counselor and let him/her know if you can help...I guarantee you, they not only know exactly which kids need your help but how to do so with the discretion and anonymity those kids and their families deserve.

And hear when I tell you we would not have made it, were it not for those already doing the good.