What if? -- Blog Action Day 2008

I don't know why it hit me.  It just did.

 

My baby girl was screaming in the car.  You know, that I'm here and I'm hungry cry.  For some reason, she was off the charts with her earsplitting wails.  Almost home -- it was the "Feed me NOW" cry.

I raced up our stairs, ran around the kitchen, finding the bottle, getting out what I needed, but I just could not move fast enough for her.  Food from mama was so much quicker, but we were past that point!  The cries escalated another octave.  I grabbed the handle of the refrigerator and stopped dead in my tracks as a thought from out of I-don't-know-where hit me like hard kick to the belly.

 

What if I opened the refrigerator and there was nothing there.

 

Nada.  Zip.  Empty.

 

What if I knew that I, her mother, had nothing to take away her misery? 

What if I knew that there would be nothing tomorrow, or the next day? 

What if I had to watch my baby slowly and painfully waste away to a shriveled sack of baby bones?

 

I knew that there were millions of mother's all over the world who knew that they had no food to feed to their babies. 

 

I don't know why it hit me at that moment, but hit it did, and that horrifying thought has stayed with me ever since.

 

 

 

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 to encourage bloggers to spread awareness of the deplorable poverty that exists in our world.  It exists in every country, city , town, village, community on earth.

 

 

 

Why?  The roots are strong and deep, but we have a big beautiful community of humans here who have the brains and the means to eliminate it if we focus on the problem.  Just thinking about the enormity of the problem makes my head hurt and my mind spin -- how can I possibly help?  I'm not going to try to dissect the causes, but just share a few ways to help that are accessible to you and me.

 

Mercy Corps

Heifer International

Habitat for Humanity

Feeding America (Second Harvest)

Mothers Fighting for Others

Don't wait for our fearless leaders to solve this one.  We can do it ourselves.

 

Copyright 2008 Elaine Hanson