hungry

hungry

there was an old station wagon sitting at the flea market, an old dodge and sitting behind the wheel was 'hungry' an older ndn guy who was always seen hauling is whole family from here to there...if you looked at him you wouldn't look twice because he is one of those kind people who just fade into the background anywhere you go...they are there but you don't see them...

he always drove his elderly mother around she always took the front seat and his wife and kids would ride in the back....they lived way out in the sticks and their wheels showed it because it was kind of beat up but the thing about him and his kids was that they were always in a good mood...he wore an old baseball cap that used to be white but had turned gray over time and always had a good word to say...

the other day i was driving down the road and saw an old house where no one is living now...it made me think that ndns lived there and moved on to a better life or place...the house was abandoned and then i thought the other possibility was that some families just disappear as in the just seem not to be around anymore....i thought that would mean that they did not survive as a family and had fallen apart...

i often see as i look around that many people are pretty poor just trying to survive...hungry's family was like that....he worked jobs as a security guard or hauled wood or was collecting cans....i used to see him on the highway walking down the road with a plastic sack looking for aluminum cans...or at the flea market....he supported his mother and his wife and three kids....they always travelled together when they went to town and sure liked going to the movie...

for some on the rez when you make a little extra money you take your family to town eat good, go to a movie and for some to get a motel room and just lay on a bed and watch tv or stay at a place where there is a pool so the kids can swim...it is like taking a vacation away from home but it is just into town...hungry did this for his family...

i would run into him from time to time and we would talk for a while and he would tell me things that were going on....one time i saw them and they were all hitch hiking to town and picked them up....he said his wheels broke down and he had in town getting it fixed....it took him a year to pay it off but he finally got that station wagon back and riding around again...

right now times are hard and moreso for those that are grassroots people who just want to survive from day to day....it is harder to get a job when you don't have all the training or education and for some it is not their fault...hungry was one of those kind of people he didn't finish school and worked odd jobs because he had to help his family survive and somehow he managed...

i would see him from time to time and wonder how they would get along without him and he was the rock that family rests on to live....well as time passed he passed away due to diabetes....his family got split up...his mother finally ended up in a nursing home and his wife was left to her own devices to survive and became a maid...the kids ended up in foster care and his eldest daughter even though she was quite young became a diabetic like her father.....i am remember hungry tonight and can see him with all his kids and his wife during the good times they used to have....

tonight i learned his daughter passed away from kidney failure due to her diabetes....she was only in her twenties....the abandoned house i saw the other day was their place and now they are scattered to the wind....

in the early light of dawn i can see him hungry standing there...in the early light of day and greeting his daughter whom he loved very much and they would be happy to see each other and that they might find a place in the sun with a bit of shade and drink some cool water....and all those that came before might come up to them and say....i am your relation...i am you and you are me and they will know they were loved even from before they were born...because an elder stood there on the high rocks and spoke softly to the wind....i just want to let you know that even though you just a thought that my hopes and dreams are that you will live a good life and one day i will meet you and we will sit and talk....and laugh in that bit of shade and i might give you some cool sweet water....

rustywire