Sweetness

This past weekend we attended Husband's family Christmas potluck. He has 9 aunts and uncles, so there's usually quite a crowd. And it's a diverse crowd at that.

Some of them are just like Husband and me, but twangier. Some are country to the core; simple folks with simple values. And some could have been extras in Deliverance. I am not exaggerating even a little bit. I have to say though, that even uncle Jimmy, who is like the Hillbilly Grisly Adams, has a certain charm to him. Though he scared me a little bit (okay, a lot) the first time I met him, it's hard not to like him. He's what they call "good people" as are most of the attendees.

There are however, some not so good people. There are black sheep in every family, I suppose, and Husband's family, being unusually large, has more than average. But they mostly stay away, or make a brief appearance to hug and kiss Nanny and deliver her gift. This year Nanny is gone. Its the first Christmas without her. So though there was the usual Christmas gaiety, her absense was felt. Some just couldn't confront the incongruously huge hole left by their tiny Nanny, and the crowd this year was noticeably smaller.

Because the family is so large, there are still people I don't know, even after 13 years of Christmas potlucks. So I wasn't surprised when I spied a little girl I hadn't seen before. She was about four, maybe 5. In contrast to most of the other little girls that age, who were dressed in their holiday best and painstakingly groomed, this little girl was wearing ragged blue jeans and her hair was dishevelled. But her shabby appearnce could not diguise the fact that she was a beautiful child. She had curly blonde hair, china blue eyes, and huge cheeks that were flushed pink with excitement.

I noticed her because she was seated at the same table as us, with three desserts in front of her.

Husband chuckled and described how she had asked him to cut her a piece of apple crumb cake. He asked, motioning, if she wanted a piece that big, or that big. She said she wanted a piece THAT big. Husband, to whom diminutive females in distress are like kryptonite, was powerless to refuse. He cut her a piece THAT big.

I scolded him good naturedly about letting her have three desserts, but he swore to me that he had only served her one. Apparently two other hapless adults had fallen prey to her charms as well.

I asked Sister-In-Law who the child's mother was. Tight lipped, she named the cousin in question and made the family connections for me, which had become automatic for her when discussing the various branches of their unusually large family tree.

I knew her mother only by sight. She's a brittle looking woman; the kind that other women eye with caution. The kind that men are happy to hook up with because there's no need for the preliminary niceties, unless sharing swigs of Cuervo out of a paper bag and eating pilfered bar peanuts counts as wining and dining.

I said, "Well someone should tell her. That child will get a bellyache if she eats all that!"

She didn't respond right away, but then said quietly, "Bless her little heart. She don't get stuff like that at home. She just don't know what to do." I saw that while tears stood in her eyes, her face was hard with anger.

"Why haven't I seen her before?" I asked.

"She got taken away for a long time." said Sister-In-Law tightly.

I asked why, not really sure I wanted to know, but unable to help myself.

"Her Mama couldn't be bothered to feed her."

Right then and there, any vestige of holiday spirit I'd been able to manufacture 900 miles away from home, in 80 degree weather, evaporated. Like Sister-In-Law, I was angry.

Because forgetting to feed a child is not like forgetting to feed a dog (or, a Garfieldesque feline who can obviously wait until the next meal). An infant will wail, a toddler will beg, a child will plead. My non-verbal Diminutive One used to indicate hunger by rubbing his tummy and saying "MMMMMMM-mmmm." Ignoring him would have meant ignoring every single instinct I posessed as a mother.

I began to think of how much of my mothering involves food. There is breakfast for one, then the other. An inexhaustable supply of snacks for both. Lunch on weekends. Dinner. When I'm not preparing it, I'm shopping for it. When I'm not shopping for it, I'm planning to shop for it. When we're busy, or on the go, I'm constantly worried about when and what I will feed my children. How will I squeeze in a square meal before they rush off to the ballpark? How will I manage a hot breakfast in a hotel room? Where will we stop that I can get something wholesome and not entirely saturated in fat and preservatives? Maybe I should pack a cooler, or at least throw a few granola bars and bananas in the car. It's never ending.

The point is, feeding a hungry child is as basic and instinctual as breathing. Not feeding a hungry child is a conscious choice. You can't "forget" unless you make a concerted effort to do so.

Now, I love my boys. And I've managed to get over my disappointment at not having girls and appreciate all the ways in which I am extremely lucky to have them. Being a mother of boys is who I am and I like it.

But I still experience an occasional pang of regret at not having a girl.

To see such a beautiful little girl and know that her mother does not cherish her for the the precious gift that she is made my guts twist into tight knots of impotent rage. Watching her scoop spoonful after spoonful of innocent pleasure into her sweet little mouth, knowing it might be her last for some time....well, it broke my heart into a million pieces.

I didn't really know what to do with that. So I pushed it away. And eventually I was distracted by all the merry making. When I looked again, she was gone, but two desserts remained. She had eaten only one. For some reason, that made me heartbroken all over again.

There's really no point to my story, I suppose. If there has to be one, then I guess it would be that no matter how horrible most of us think we are at parenting, as long as our children have food in their bellies and tons of love and approval...the rest is pretty incidental.

Hug your children. Cherish them. Never take them for granted.

And let them have sweet treats now and then. Life is nothing without a little sweetness and we'll never appreciate it the way we did when we were kids.