When no choice becomes your only choice.

For as long as I can remember I have had a choice.

Weetabix or toast for breakfast?

Toast?

Would you like promite or honey on it?

This school bag or that one or even that one?

Music or sport?

Art or music or legal studies or history or geography?

This boyfriend or that one?

Stay in my home town or move away to study?

Will you marry me?

Kids now or later?

I can't say I ever really thought about having a choice. It was just always there.

My inalienable right. 

I need to tell you something blush worthy - more than blush worthy really - tomato red stained shame.

I didn't have much of an outward focus for a long time. 

I was that person who would watch the news and see people living in poverty and think to myself, poor things, then forget all about them. I'd see a photo of a teenage girl begging on the street holding a tiny infant in a dirty ripped singlet and no pants and admire the impact of the image rather than wonder about the girl. 
Well, it's not like I could save them all right?!
But then something happened. I traveled overseas. First to India. Then to the Philippines.
SLAP.
Fair across my left cheek then back across my right. 
I have seen a family living under a single sheet of rusted corrugated iron on the side of the road. I met their son. He was healthy when I met him. Chubby, happy and going to live with his forever family in Sweden. When he originally left his corrugated iron shelter he was malnourished. Skin, bones and sores. 
Come on people - get a job, feed your son something decent.
No.
Why?
Because there is no work where they live. Not a lack of choice between jobs. No job at all.
and
no job means no food.
No food means feed your baby son the water drained from the family's tiny portion of rice. Rice water in place of milk means no nourishment.
Well, why didn't you breastfeed your baby son?? Breast is best!
No job means no food which means no nourishment which means no breast milk which leaves no choice but to give him rice water.
Skinnier and skinnier he grows until there becomes only one choice.
Lack of choice became that families only choice for their son.
Sign a voluntary deed of commitment so that he can be raised by a family with plenty.
I could never give my child away.
What if you had no choice and that became your only choice?
I was taken into a small concrete hut  less than two months ago.
We didn't know why we were going in there - just that someone thought we may be able to help.
SLAP SLAP.
A ten year old girl lying on a bed. Emaciated. Eyes rolling rhythmically in her head. The photo on the wall showed her five months earlier - healthy and smiling - part of the family photo. 
She knew we were there as she would look for us when her eyes were forward. She squeezed Pauline's hand as we talked with her mother.
She had been tested for meningitis but that came back negative. The mothers choice? Well, have her hospitalised, keep testing and trying to get an answer and bring her back to health - no expense spared - except - the family is poor
and their only choice became no choice and so she lays at home dying.
I urge you 
don't leave it to the do -gooders
or say 'that's not my thing'
because you have got a choice.

Nicki Edwards

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Thanksgiving--from the Perspective of a"Blow in"

(Due to moving the blog posts the dates of publication are off by 2 or 3. Sorry a bout that delay. Contents remain the same.)

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American and Canadian tradition. In Germany, where I grew up, I only knew it from that Thanksgiving Sunday in early autumn in the Catholic Church where thanks is given for a good year’s harvest. Some crops are brought in and put on display under the altar to be blessed. Ireland where I also lived hasn’t adopted this American holiday although it tends to follow American trends in many other regards.

So my exposure to American Thanksgiving is fairly new. It was only introduced into my life a few years ago by my new American husband. I read up on it and know that it originates from the first pilgrims. “When Europeans first arrived to the Americas, they brought with them their own harvest festival traditions from Europe, celebrating their safe voyage, peace and good harvest” (Wikipedia) and blended them with Native American harvest traditions.

Having read up on a topic is one thing; living it can be a different matter. Halloween feels equally strange to me. Our whirlwind romance catapulted me into the open arms of a welcoming family. Not being used to a big family, I find the big get togethers and their customs challenging. In Germany, we never ate turkey. I find the food pairings odd and am not aware of their symbolic meanings. Why pickles with turkey and gravy?  Bread rolls plus potato mash? The overflowing table and abundance of everything makes the Ex Farmer’s wife in me cringe when I think of all the starving people around the world and millions that go hungry in this country alone. In all fairness, not all left-overs go down the garbage disposal. The turkey will be served again in various forms until everybody is fed up eating it. Why not get a smaller turkey in the first place?

I should still embrace the day as one of purely saying thanks for the good life I’m enjoying. Deep down in my heart of hearts, I am grateful for the privileged life-style I’m enjoying. I’m grateful for the fact that my husband has a job and that he brings home the bacon while I can indulge my hobby, i.e., writing. I’m grateful for all my friends and the encouraging words and responses I’m getting from people who “befriend” me and that I’m “linked” to.

I’m grateful that my daughter started her first paid job and that my son will graduate next year too. I’m grateful that I have lived a life in countries with civil liberties and the freedom to express my convictions without persecution. I’m grateful that I was born into this world at this point in time and place.

Yet, being a person for whom the glass is always half-empty, saying thanks doesn’t come natural. Since I feel the years creeping up on me, the cynic in me wants to inject that what is left in the glass is evaporating fast. I would be more grateful if I saw my children more often than just a few days a year. I would be more grateful if my pain didn’t keep me from working in my job.  

Having been told to “Count my blessings” by my Irish housekeeper, I try to do that every day. Shouldn’t we all be grateful for what we have all year long, day in, day out? Do we need a specific day in the year to remind us?

I guess we do. Otherwise we would take it all for granted even more.

PS. My American family would find some German traditions strange too, I’m sure.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Siggy Buckley