The Real Price of Poverty

My family has been home the last two days due to the winter weather. I'm profoundly surprised by the amount of food we've consumed in that time. It makes me think back to my mother and wonder how on Earth did she ever feed us all. Her house was always full with her five children coming and going with their friends, boyfriends, husband, or children and every cat or lost child that came our way. See I'm the second youngest of my mother's children so I still lived at home when my eldest sister returned home due to injures caused by a car accident and my second eldest sister returned home (many times) with her two children when her husband and her weren't getting along. My boyfriend moved in at one point when his family kicked him out. There were years when my brothers friends lived with my mother off and on due to family issues. There were always too many people and too few beds, but more love and laughter then I've known since.

Now married with a family of my own, currently eating their way through everything we have in the kitchen, I have to stop and wonder how she kept us all feed? And how did she find the generosity to always say yes to whatever lost soul found its way to our door? One of my most vivid memories is of her siting at the table with "her papers." By hand she would sit and calculate every penny, for hours sometimes, while she drank cups of coffee. I was a self absorbed child at the time, but looking back I can see clearly that she was stressed, even afraid. The way she tapped her pen and look so intent. I think she thought that if she worked the numbers enough she could make it work for another month. And somehow, she did.

I know we had help. My father paid child support for me. It helped. We ate church food when times got really hard. Sometimes a friend or a church would go out of their way to help us. The Christian Clinic gave my sister the expensive drugs she needed to control her seizures and keep her alive. My mother was always counting the cents. I remember we would go through the grocery and she would hand pick each item based on value. She knew what each item would cost down to the penny. If the price went up even ten cents we would do without that week. There were times when my mother would miscalculate and we'd get to check-out with a dollar more food then she could pay for. The seconds felt like minutes as she agonized over what she would put back. But more often then not the person behind her would give her the dollar she needed. Sometimes they'd give more. Sometimes they even paid for the whole ticket.

I know that people helped and that's how the dollars were enough, but today I wonder how she dealt with the fear. She was responsible for all of us and everyday she lived in fear that she would not be enough. As my own three year old, who has never wanted for anything, runs around our house so happy and warm and full, I find myself in tears imagining how I would feel if it were different. If I was alone, not enough, and everyday feared that I would fail her. That she would be hungry and then I would lose her. It is only now as an adult and a mother myself that I can understand what my mother went through. As a child I was often angry with my mother and I blamed her. I was so self-centered I never realized how hard all this must have been for her. I think now, she didn't have to fight so hard. She could have given us up to the state and been done with it. Of course, I know what she would say. I know because now I'm a mother too.