Hunger....up close and personal

Last year around the holidays, I had an eye opening conversation with Maria Martinez, who has been a part of our family and my personal shrink for years. There's no subject we haven't covered and none too tabu to tackle. She's one of my closest friends and I look forward to hearing her key in the lock on Tuesdays.

We were talking about our childhoods around Christmastime and things we remembered. I told her about my job every year of having to decorate the Christmas tree with our yardman--a task my mother assigned me--until I was old enough (and strong enough) to say hell no. I hate decorating trees to this day, though I loved our yardman. He would always try to make me laugh but it just wasn't exactly a warm fuzzy for me. I thought I had the best sob story until Maria told me about her childhood in Mexico.

It seems her dad was a bit of a drinker, skirt chaser, and though he made decent money, being faithful to Maria's mom was just not part of the deal. One year he took off permanently with the latest girlfriend, and left Maria's mom with eight children and zero pesos. Maria watched as her mom tried to scrape together enough money for food--never mind presents. Tears ran down her cheeks as she told me about the tiny tea set her mom got her baby sister, and the candy she made for the older children. She said it's a tradition in Mexico to make tamales for Christmas and her mom, being a proud, strong woman was not about to beg for money to make them for her children. And her dad, with all his money, did absolutely nothing to help out financially. He was too busy drinking and partying to even consider his children might be hungry. The staples for the tamales wasn't the hard part to come up with--it was the meat to go in the tamales that was the b-i-g problem. No money for food-- much less meat.

Christmas Eve came and suddenly out came all of the needed supplies for the tamales--including meat. Maria could not imagine how her mom could have come up with the meat. Into the kitchen they went, as a family, to make the tamales. The look in Maria's eyes, as she describes those tamales made me tear up. She was so proud of her mom and her ability to provide for her children--her work ethic, quiet strength, and her humility. Her kindness to all.

It was only a few years later that Maria realized where her mom had gotten the tamale meat. Around the same time of the need for the tamale meat, their family dog had "disappeared". Maria's mom told the children it must have run away.
For someone who has never missed a meal except by choice, the reality of hunger and a mother's love knocked the wind out of me. I had to sit down. I wondered if I could have done something that tough. I pray I never have to find out.