A few hours pass.
I see him asleep in the back seat of the car. Trying to wake him up he grabbed at his stomach. "Jayden, you have to go to practice. Hurry up!" For the next two hours I see him randomly pull at his stomach. After practice he asked for a snack. "No, we will have dinner as soon as it is ready."
We were sitting at the table and he inhaled his plate and asked for more before I could blink. "Jayden, what's up dude?" "I told you I was hungry!" Scratching my head I imagined he was ready to grow some more.
The next day on the way to school he points out a classmate. "That is who I give my lunch too." "What do you mean give your lunch? You eat your lunch. It is for YOU!" "Mom he doesn't have money to buy food and his mom doesn't send him anything."
Epic fail as a mom. I sit and reprimand and don't ask the right questions. His compassion shines through everywhere he goes. He loves, helps, shares. And I forget. Sometimes I get cold and numb to what is around me. I get tired of the garbage pickers going through my trash and dumping crap all over the front of the house before the truck comes by. I get tired of there always being someone next to me and in front of me that is need. I have gotten so exhausted that I have started to become cold. I need my blinders removed.
Sometimes I give so much, so hard, and for so long that I forget to give back to me. If I give back to me and take a few minutes I am not as toxic and cold. And maybe I will start to ask the right questions.
For instance. Maybe there is a problem with migration for more reasons than danger. Starting with the lack of education and poverty. What would you do and where would you go if you never had food for your child? Imagine for a minute a shack with walls made from sheets and a roof made from a tarp. You may call it camping, but your tent is way to nice for what I am talking about. What if your only pot had a hole in it. Your kitchen spoon was a stick and your stove was an open fire under the rain drops. No refrigerator. No cabinets and pantry full of boxed/canned goods. You had to make what you found around you in the garden or what you could aford to buy for your family after earning your wage of less than $2 for your whole days work. How are you going to feed your family? What will you do as you stare at your child gripping his gut because he hasn't eaten in two days? That my friends is the reality of where we live.
