 CRUMBS FOR THE STARVING
Dear Elie, More of "Night" has penetrated to the pain of a distant Past. It is not that I have not dealt with this, I have, but with you, Elie, I can revisit those places once more, safely, and relive the times that were, and that today, have changed. Not entirely, I say, because I do not believe one can shed the past as a skin is shed, like the little lizards whose discarded coverings can be found, empty and tattered, never to be worn again. So many wounds, even deep ones, heal without scarring. The body has a wonderful way of covering open sores, renewing flesh, closing gaping holes - and to look without microscope and x-rays one could never see beneath the new skin and its glow. Some wounds, surgeries and the like, leave scars - open, visible, ugly in their truth of what went before to make them. No body part is exempt from being hurt, no place visible or invisible to the public eye is exempt from bearing marks or scars or some relic of a trauma. And so today, what has touched me in the epic of your tale of horror is the constant pall of Hunger. Killing is excusable to find some bread, to eat a crumb, to fill one tiny spot somewhere within a stomach shrunken flat and dried of juices to digest and distribute to the body. Manipulation, cunning, greed, murder, hurting, torture, barter, trade, suffering - ANYTHING goes for a crumb of bread. For many it is the validation and excuse for man's most violent thought and deed - it justifies the unthinkable - where there is Hunger, where there is the need for Bread - DO it, if the crumbs can be obtained and eaten. Is this not the way of the survivor? Is this not the creed by which my starving child will live ? Hunger justifies the means of being fed. Hunger justifies whatever may be forced upon me with the promise of a crumb, the possibility of this visceral hunger being met. Hunger drives my starving child to all extremes against the strivings of my soul for good, the anguish of my recoiled heart to wrong, the drowning of the deafening cry of conscience. But I am hungry, Mummy. I am STARVING - dont you SEE? Don't you CARE? Are you so well fed yourself you do not recognize the signs of Hunger? OR. Are you so starved yourself, we look alike, yet not alike, and you are so busy crumb hunting you have no time for me and can only feed yourself? In the concentration camp of Hunger, each prisoner can only look out for him/herself. Frank. You remember him well, Elie. Wanting your crowned tooth and taking your ration of bread so his Warsaw dentist pal could extract your gold. A ration of bread for nothing because he left the camp and your father was no longer beaten by him in the forced marches. The cessation of this your reason for the trade. How much gold was extracted from my child mouth ? How many words were removed with the threat that if I dared to speak, to voice my feelings, opinions, hurt and pain, I would be punished under the tenet that, "Children should be seen and not heard", and most definitely not be presumptious enough to think I might have words of worth or showing of intelligence. Frank used a rusty spoon on you. My mother used her tongue, rusted from disuse of kindness, compassion, understanding of a child's heart, and not used to speaking crumbs of love, of comfort, of tender gentle care and filling my small tummy with a sense of warmth. Only one crumb, Mummy. That's all I asked for - just one crumb. One word, one look, one touch, one gentle hug, one loving gesture - just for me. I gave up ration after ration of the bread of my self-worth, my sense of having worth, my image of a good trustworthy me. I gave my very being for a crumb. It should have been my Mother who was giving me HER bread, ration after ration in a daily diet of maternal love and holding. This was no exchange, no trade at all. Just one crumb. That's all I asked for. Just one crumb for a starving child. But I fed her. She did not feed me. So I grew up feeding others and starving in the doing. At Buna Camp, Elie, the head of your tent offered to give you an extra ration of bread for your shoes. But you refused. They were all you had. I was not so brave. When a so called christian woman in a religious camp I was sent to offered me her friendship, an extra ration of the precious bread, I willingly gave my shoes. They were all I had but I did not walk away because I thought, here is someone who really seems to care. I did not get my extra ration. I did not get one ration. Instead, I got molested, betrayed and violated, left barefoot for the rocky path and perilous trail ahead. This for a crumb and the promise of more. The starving child in me would give up all I had with such an offer of free love. I learned my lesson well, and I sought in many places for scraps of material to make new shoes for paths that would not hurt my feet and make them bleed. But my shoes were not the soft material of a child's naivete - the being fooled by her soft words, kind gestures, smiling face. How easily I was suckered in, in my starving state where Hunger blinds the vision, blocks the hearing and reaches out thin hands in beggar supplication for a crumb of bread. I still can see her face, and see the look change from loving to malicious, hard and angry as I pulled away when she pressed her body against mine and tried to kiss me on the lips. I struggled, bewildered and afraid, and ran off. Leaving my shoes of innocence in her hands and leaving with my stomach still empty and craving to be filled. Even just a little bit. Mummy, don't you SEE I'm starving? It is so cold and I am so hungry. My new shoes ? Sewn in thick leather on the shoemaker's last of distrust, patched and patterned with my wariness, fear, hypervigilance,doubt,anxiety, watchfulness and skepticism. My new shoes fit me very well and did not blister like the old ones. They were not worn away by the roughness of the road. In fact, they seemed to gain strength and hardiness against the stones and obstacles that strew the way. But they did not bring me crumbs, and the starving days continued. One time, Elie, after the train ride when the dead had been thrown out and the living remained, you wrote, " We were given no food. We lived on snow; it took the place of bread". When the body is already frozen, frost-bitten in a winter world, eating snow simply equalizes inside,outside body temperatures. My childhood world was winter wrapped in the coldness of rejection and abandonment, my heart frozen out of any place of warmth. Love, iced over, invisible beneath the opaque surface of my mother's face. Nurture, one hard glacier, too slippery for little feet to stay upright on its slopes, too dangerours to clamber up in search of crumbs. Only snow, cold, tasteless, deceptive in its soft and gentle arms - lying waiting to receive whoever would lie down - and not rise up again. I was given no food, no bread, no crumbs and for a very long time I lived on snow - it took the place of bread. What is snow ? Beautiful to look at. It clothes the scenery with the purest white, a purity of color undriven when untouched. But touch it and it is immediately defiled. Becomes dirty, soiled, muddied. Hold it and it melts, becoming liquid nothingness leaking through ones fingers and returning to the earth. Eat it and there is no nourishment, solidity, or sating of an appetite. I lived on snow - it took the place of bread. I am so hungry, Mummy. In my community the people were content with outward cover up, (not covering ), appearance of morality as pristine as unblemished snow. Appearances like snow, deceptive in the look, the promise of a soft, gentle embrace that offers warmth and welcome to the hungry such as me. Before I understood deception and the meaning of its name, when I had scrounged in vain for Love crumbs in my mother's face, only to touch blue ice, I could not look below into her heart. Once I had tried to clamber up her glacial slope, little girl hands struggling, clinging to dress holds, dress folds, and pull me up onto her lap, hunting crumbs of Nurturance and craving Kindness. Not understanding that a glacier cannot wrap its arms around a child's small frame. It cannot feed word crumbs, " I love you" " Come to me and I will hold you close and rock you till you fall asleep", " You are safe with me, and dear to me and I will never let you go. You are my little girl, my darling child". Oh, wondrous crumbs, what flavor and what taste. The promise of such feast makes my small breast burst with hidden hope and expectation! I climbed as champion mountaineer so eager in my hungry state, so weak from lack of food - one little girl, one mother's lap. A push, a shove, and I slid tumbling to the floor. " Go away, Goessoftly. You're messing up my dress. You can't sit on my lap" Melted snow turned to liquid nothingness, returning to the earth. No crumbs today. I am too weak to climb again, too sad, too hurt to even raise my head and see the sky. Out of bread. I turn to the Community. The snow looks so pretty, and inviting. People laughing gaily, talking about someone called Jesus and how He loves the little children of the world. The world ? MY lonely, isolated world? I am filled with hope, excitement squelched quickly out of sight lest someone see and take away my prize. Here, there will be crumbs of care from this One Who loves the children of the World. They even sang," Red, and yellow ( that's ME), black and white; all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the children of the World". Sounded like a whole LOAF of bread, much more than crumbs. All dressed up in long billowy gowns, red with white collars, cuffs, the choir sang to the rafters in the grey-stoned church. It sounded so beautiful, my large eyes could not see enough, and the music swelled in my ears as though from angels. My inner mouth was watering - anticipation of the Love for ME from One Who loves the world, MY world, where being yellow was precious in His sight. I never did see Him - He wasn't there though I looked and looked. I even thought He might have a whole loaf in His hands, but there wasn't even one crumb. The snow started to fall. White flakes mirroring white faces all around me in the church, and they started to melt when I tried to touch one. " Oh, so you're the little Chinese orphan?", smile of condescending good will that shriveled my already shriveled stomach. A hand held out to me which I politely shook. Cold hand, cold feeling, politeness like a pale shroud covering disdain that I did not understand except to know no crumb of welcome lay beneath. A hungry child in such desperation for some food. My mother introducing me to friends, suggesting later that I teach in Sunday School, sing in the choir, be confirmed in the Church of England. I lived on snow - it took the place of bread. Snow flakes every Sunday where I went to eat. At least my hand got held by someone once a week in short touched shake. At least someone spoke to me without overt dislike. At least I could hear music, stirring my child heart with harmony beyond the conflict warring in my soul. At least my mother sat beside me for an hour during service. A whole hour, right beside me like I was her daughter and she, my mother - a snow flake soon to melt after the sermon ended and collection taken up. Touch the snow and it becomes dirty. I fed on snow because there was no bread, and what was once white purity of Hope for food became a liquid nothingness, sullied in hypocrisy, and blackened in the disillusionment of dreams dashed father down than the deep could ever go. A starving child will eat snow if bread is not available - will accept any crumb of artifical kindess and concern even when it knows such isn't really food. I lived a while on snow, not feeling how the frostbite numbed all feelings and packed them down far in the reaches of my heart. Frozen tears, frozen needs, frozen ability to choose or talk or reach out for myself - packed down tighter every week as I ate snow and froze the chambers of my heart. Emaciation is a sign of advanced starvation - the skinny limbs, the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. Strength has gone, desire to live will fade, after a while, even hunger loses its intensity, becomes a chronic ache, a vagueness ever present of an unmet need. A picture of my inner child. In the concentration camp of Hunger my child was starved of love, the basic bread and vittle of a healthy diet. The one food every child will thrive on if nothing else is there. It took so many years to find this bread, to build some strength, to add on other garnishings and learn to slowly eat, a little at a time until my heart became accustomed to the taste. I think my mother died in Hunger Camp - I do not believe she ever found her bread because she did not learn to feed another. Nothing in her hand to hold out to me before she died. And at that time, I still was starving, hungry and in need of food myself and so I did not have, to share with her, and live with this regret. Today, I can only come to terms with the real fact that she is dead and there is nothing I can do to feed her now, nor can she offer crumbs to me and never will. But I have left the Camp and changed my shoes again, perhaps still plaqued with patches of distrust and wariness, but whatever patterns still remain, the supple leather that enfolds my feet is made of flexibility and openness that wear so well when traveling on foot. The Healing Journey with its hills and valleys knows all sorts of weather, but my shoes withstand the snow, are warmed by sun and as I leave the camp of Hunger further and further behind, I look no more for crumbs. My staple food is Love. I am no longer starving. NOT to be copied in any form   | LEGACY OF THE UNBELOVED | CRUMBS FOR THE STARVING | DISINFECTION | BEAUTY | WHY and WHAT | Would You Still Be My friend ? | THE BOTTLE | ROSES and THISTLES | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | |
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