Posted by Carol Roach on May 17, 2001 at 18:00:03:
Growing up poor was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but to a young child none of these things really mattered. What I wanted and what I needed was love and that is just what I got from my Ma who was my grandmother.
My Ma did everything that she could for me. She even went without food so that I would have food to eat. My Ma's only source of income was the board which my mother paid her every Friday night for me. It was $10.00 a week and the rent was $40.00 a month. We lived in old cold water flat that even back then should have been condemned. We used to wash ourselves in an old washtub or at the kitchen sink when no one was around. We did not have a bathtub or a shower or even a sink in the bathroom for privacy. I was about 12 years old when the landlord finally installed a bathtub but no shower ever came.
Living from $10.00 a week was near impossible. So my Ma would have to find other means to take care of the household expenses and us. She took in washing from the neighbours and labouriously slaved over ironing men's working shirts. Boy did I hate the starch in my own blouses and I flatly refused to have my blouses starched. It hurt my neck! I wore hand me downs but they were always fresh and clean and ironed! Once a year I would get a new pair of shoes from my mother and a new outfit. I would wear it on Easter morning to church and I felt like I was a Queen - I was rich!
In some ways I was rich, though not at the church where the rich people went, but back at home in the neighbourhood for I was the best dressed kid on the block. All the other kids were in rags. However, we were a ghetto community that helped out each other. Every neighbour vied for the opportunity to get my hand me down clothes when I had out grown them. By this time most were already third and fourth hand. But they were clean, ironed, and any holes were sewn so they were like rich people's clothes to most of my friends.
With $10.00 a week as a steady income Ma had to take handouts for food as well. You see people would have to donate food because that $10.00 bought the groceries and was supposed to pay the rent. But the $10.00 a week did not always come on time. My mother was supposed to bring it promptly after she finished work on Friday evening, and sometimes it was Sunday and there was still no money to be found.
I remember the many arguments My Ma had with my mother over the phone for that money. One particular time I was about 9 years old and my Ma had to make yet another one of those calls. It was Sunday and there was no food in the house and no board money. My Ma tells my Mother that there is no food for me to eat only to get the answer, "well she can afford to go without a meal or two she is too fat anyhow". I know it was said in anger and my Mother did bring the board money that day but nevertheless, it was said anyhow.
My Ma struggled all through my growing up years. She could never get social aid because I was not her child. The welfare authorities told her that she would have to give me back to my parents in order to get help for herself. She would never do that since she knew the consequences for me would be to live with either parent neither of whom would want me or love me.
One time however my Mother did realize the conditions that I lived under and she did volunteer to take me to live with her. She tried to entice me by saying there was always good food to eat and she had carpets on the floor. We, my Ma and I, had worn out linoleum and no money to replace it. I quickly responded as a 9 year child who loved her grandmother dearly would, I said; "I don't need to go live with you we can have carpets on the floor too, we can put down blankets".
As far as the food was concerned I never went hungry, I always ate. It was my Ma that went without meals to give all she had to me. Furthermore, summertime was part of my fondest memories because all of us kids from the neighbourhood used to go around climbing the lilac trees and bringing my Ma the beautiful lilacs. We loved to do it as my Ma was so appreciative. The Lilac was both her favourite flower and her favourite colour as well. My Ma would set the lilacs in a vase on the kitchen table and we would sit down to a meal. The sweet smell of lilacs would permeate the house - our little 3-room house. I would relish my meal, my Ma's conversation, and the beautiful lilacs and I knew in my heart we were living like rich people!
Submitted by Carol Roach
Winterose706@hotmail.com
Carol is a grandmother, a trained counsellor and a budding Internet writer from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She has written 4 other articles for e-zines and was in fact inspired to write through reading Michael Power's wonderful e-zine.
Send Carol an e-mail and let her know what you thought of her story!