Those Are My Neighbors You're Talking About
It's really hard to not take the words personally, you know. When you talk about freeloaders and people who have something to hide and people who are abusing the system, I think, "I know those people." Those people are my neighbors.
Well, not literally. Not now, anyway. I'm 1500 miles and a lifetime away from being that little girl living in the trailer park, but still. Those people are my neighbors. I know them.
************************************************************************
We were always terrified of her. She was a tiny old woman with curly white hair, but we really only knew that because we sometimes peered into the windows of her white and turquoise metal mobile home. It was one of those things that kids dare other kids to do because she was terrifying.
The tiny old woman seemingly never left her house. She never opened the door and she never opened the windows. We knew she was in there, though. We knew because when we knocked on the door to say "trick-or-treat!" she would let out a shrill growl.
"Go away!" she would yell.
And we would. As fast as we could.
Her home was the only home in the entire trailer park that was a bust on Halloween. We always used that as an excuse to hate her. She was an evil, mean old woman. She didn't hand out candy.
Years later, after my family had moved to another part of town where the trailers were more than 10 first-grader steps apart, I learned that she had died alone, in her home, just feet from where I had once lived. "Serves her right," I thought.
But then I realized that the person telling me the story of her sad death was her grandson. Minot, North Dakota is a very small place, so coincidences abound. The tiny old lady who was so very mean had died all alone, and wasn't found for weeks. She was ultimately discovered when an odor was reported to the authorities.
The tiny old woman had rarely ventured out of her house for the greater part of a decade. She had out-lived her husband of over 50 years. She had nothing to live for once he was gone. And she had nothing. A lengthy battle with cancer, the battle he ultimately lost, had robbed them of their life savings and it had robbed the tiny old woman of her pride.
She lived in that dilapidated trailer because she was too proud to accept help from her kids, spending her days impatiently waiting to die.
No income. No savings. No photo identification. That's why it had taken so long to find out that the little boy's grandma had died all alone in that trailer park.
************************************************************************
Clinton was one of those friends that you make as a child and you think he's not all that important, but he sticks with you for decades. His kindness and generosity help to make you the person you eventually become, but you don't know that when you're sitting around at the playground talking about how stupid grown-ups are.
Clinton's mom was always at work. Always. Clinton wasn't really old enough to be left home alone after school, but what choice did his mom really have? It was stupid that she had to work anyway. Why couldn't she stay home just once?
On the very rare days that she was home, I was crazy jealous of Clinton and his mom. She would rip off her apron and throw off her shoes and it would be all about him. 100% Clinton. His eyes would light up and they would talk and play. In retrospect, he really was her entire universe.
She would give him all of the silver dollars that she had earned at work. They were part of her tips and surely money she needed to get by, but she always thought the silver dollars were too special to use to pay for bread and milk. I don't know why those silver dollars still reside in my mind, but they do. Every time I see one, I think about Clinton and his mom who worked way too many hours so that she could make enough money to get by. I think about how she still always gave Clinton those silver dollars.
She was a single mother who waited tables and did everything she could to provide for the little boy who was her heart and soul. I don't know where his father was. I just know he wasn't there as that baby boy grew into a man.
He wasn't there when Clinton's mom fell ill. It wasn't anything serious, just the flu, but you can't really show up for work at the local diner when you're obviously feverish and nauseous. She missed a week of work that time she had the flu.
And that's how it came to be that Clinton and his mom stood beside us one day as we waited in line for food at the WIC office.
************************************************************************
Do you know how much out enlisted military members get paid? They sacrifice stability and they travel the world fighting for what they believe is right and they make ... Well, right now the starting pay for an enlisted member of the Air Force is under $18,000. Right now those young men and women who graduate from high school and decide to dedicate their lives to defending our country make less than I paid in taxes last year.
It has actually gotten better in the past few decades. Back when I lived in that trailer park, the one with the abandoned laundromat, a lot of our neighbors were enlisted air force families. One way to "work the system" when you're in the military is to live off base. You have to find a place that costs less than your housing allowance. It's no small feat, but several families found themselves in that trailer park because it was a way to pocket a little bit more of a paycheck.
One family needed to pocket a little bit more of that paycheck because of a car accident. A terrible car accident years before had left them with a mountain of debt and a lifetime of hardship. The driver of that brand new car that wasn't insured nearly enough was a young, pregnant woman. The mother and baby survived that terrible wreck, but the baby did so with a severely broken leg and some brain damage.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was bad enough that the first several years of his life were spent going to physical therapy and speech therapy and every other kind of therapy under the sun. He didn't learn to walk until he was four years old and he didn't speak until he was even older, but eventually, he found himself still technically mentally and physically disabled, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
The struggle was a long and hard one, and the sacrifice his mother made was great. You can't really hold down a job when you're travelling between therapy sessions and advocating for your son. You can't really hold down a job when there is no facility anywhere that can handle that little boy's needs. You have to choose between doing what you have to do and what you wish you could do.
That's how a family of four found themselves living in that crappy trailer park and barely getting by, even with a military paycheck and some government assistance.
For what it's worth, my brother still lives on government assistance. He collects social security and disability and whatever else he is entitled to, but what choice does he really have? He's not the one who caused that car accident nearly 32 years ago to this day.
************************************************************************
I don't say this all so that the politicians who are waging war on the poor, and there IS a war on the poor going on, will read it and magically understand what it's like to live in that neighborhood. I say it because I see you commenting about the woman in line at the grocery store holding her Coach purse as she pays with an Access card. I see you judging the woman who doesn't have a drivers license because how does she buy booze anyway? (Hint: There are people who have to choose between paying the electric bill or buying booze and they pick the electric bill.) I see you ranting about the people who abuse the system.
Those people are my neighbors. Their stories are far more complicated than they seem.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Reader Comments (34)
Thank you.
There are so many stories to be told, so many stories that are more complicated than others want them to be. It would be easier if all of that 47% were abusing the system, if the stories weren't interwoven and complex and REAL.
Thank you for sharing more, for humanizing it all, for giving faces and stories to statistics.
Thank you for being you.
Amen, sister.
Thank you.
Thank you for this post! I've been lucky enough to be employed and paying taxes since I was 18 years old. (23 years now, OMG). Not everyone is that lucky.
Thank you for writing what I want to say. This is just beautiful.
Thanks for giving me words, thoughts, ideas, and even pain I needed to read. Just when I think I am the struggler to top a strugglers I read this & I am so thankful to just have my struggles. Thanks.
The whole thing annoys me as someone who falls on the cusp of needing the help genuinely and not being able to get it. It annoys me because here I am working my tuckus off and there are people out there demeaning me for driving an hour each way four days a week to be paid far less than my skills are worth to be able to contribute SOMETHING to my survival. But because I have a job? I often times don't qualify for the help that I need, I am continually told that I "make too much money" or have "too many resources" (please explain to me how bringing home $1100 a month AFTER taxes, and living paycheck to paycheck is too many resources).
It irks me because people find out what little help I AM getting (thank goodness for my daycare assistance or I'd be S.O.L.) and automatically assume that I must be getting more than that and that I MUST be playing the system to get what I am getting.
Just because I slave away and don't get the help I could use? Doesn't mean they can lump me in with the people who do abuse the system.
And...that got a little ranty. I'm just feeling a bit ranty at the moment....
I can't wait to share this. I hope it reaches many. Thank you for writing it.
My mom has a tin with old papers in it and I clearly remember as a teenager seeing paperwork that showed what my Dad made in the Air Force when I was a baby. And thinking, how did they live on that? But they didn't. My mom quit working when I was born to take care of me (they were both 21) and my Dad worked another, sometimes 2 other jobs. When I was 21, I was having fun at college and working toward that better start in life my parents wanted for me, such a contrast to their lives at that age.
Thank you for telling the stories and reminding us that these are real people, not numbers.
YES. Like you, these people were my neighbors. And my mom. And yes, the stories are so much more complicated and if only people would ask instead of judge.
Thank you for this.
Oh my. This really resonated with me on so many levels. First, I have lived some of this. And secondly, I feel like I am constantly reminding people that everyone's journey is different and we certainly don't know where they are in that journey. Thanks for a wonderful post!
Thank you, my friend, for calling out the propensity in this country for people to speak out loudly and negatively about things of which they don't know jack-all. Is it really that hard to produce a little empathy once in a while?
Preach it, Sister.
Well said.
THANK YOU from the bottom of heart. This post was written beautifully. I was raised by a single mom who worked SO HARD to provide for us and it still wasn't enough. I get so offended when I read things like that because it so degrading and insulting and makes me sick.
I think the people out there who make comments and insults against the poor in this country do so because they are terrified. They are terrified that this could happen to them in an instant and, to cope with this fear, demonize the poor to make themselves feel superior and immune to that kind of hardship. Let me tell you - IT CAN HAPPEN TO ALL OF US IN AN INSTANT.
this? wow. perspective, hello.
I don't understand the people, especially those who call themselves Christians who don't believe in helping the poor. I was poor too growing up. I've eaten the "government cheese, " I've gotten free school lunches. And we needed it. It didn't make me want to get everything free, or live that way forever. It made me want to work hard in school and get a good job and better myself so I never had to eat that cheese again. I did it, and so did my brother and sister. I am sure that as working adults, we have more than "paid back" the assistance we received, and we will continue to contribute to society for many years to come. That's the way it's supposed to work, and can work if people are given help when they need it.
Very well said.
You writing this makes me want to help fill the Internet with similar stories. Its too easy to judge the poor because, well, they don't have much to fight back with. But now, years later, I (and tens of thousands of other people like me) have LOTS to fight back with -- lots worth fighting for.
It always good to put things in perspective!
I'm totally going to go politic here. I know some folks who are incredibly anti-gay rights. As far as they know, they have no gay friends or family members (I know differently - ha!). They may as well have been fighting against rights for aliens, because this is a group of people with whom they have no connection. They are human beings, who want the same things for their families as you want for yours. Same situation here. We're talking about taking away safety nets from human beings, who have struggled and find themselves in situations that were no fault of their own. I for one am thankful that I've never needed a safety net, but I would like to know there is one for me, and everyone else, when we need it.
This is just... wow. YES. Excellent post.
I send up a prayer of thanks every two weeks as I pay bills that I actually get to pay bills. It hasn't been that long since I had to choose which ones to pay and which ones to put aside for a while. I also am thankful for the survivor benefits that my son gets. His biological father worked hard while he was alive, and those benefits are all he was able to leave his son. He's entitled to them.
yes and thank you.
powerful piece. way to bring tears to my eyes.
Using the 2010 federal budget and U.S. Census data , the CBPP finds that 53 percent of all government entitlements are going to people who are over 65 years old. Another 20 percent of the benefits went to disabled people, while 18 percent were going to people in a working household. The data was for the government’s 2010 fiscal year. That means that 9 percent of entitlements went to people who were not elderly, disabled or living in a household in which someone had worked at least 1,000 hours in a year.
I've been there. Actually, I feel like my whole life has been a financial facade of some sort. My daddy almost died in a car accident when I was 11. He lost his business while he sat recovering in the hospital bed for three months. If people from our church hadn't bought us groceries, we wouldn't have eaten. Things got better as the years went on, but I know my friends never had any idea how broke my parents were when we were growing up. That accident defeated an already fragile financial circumstance they were juggling.
We got really good at stretching dollars to keep up appearances. I remember my mom buying a carpet cleaner when I was in high school, using it and returning it, because "that is what poor people do."
I don't know if that is a fair thing to say, but I do know that now that I'm grown and living in a more affluent neighborhood, I have heard some neighbors make fun of or judge people whose homes have been foreclosed on, I bristle.
It can happen to anyone, for catastrophic and mundane reasons.
Most of us are one paycheck away from being one of "them." And, they probably are your neighbors now -- you just might not know it.
Well said. Well written.
Thank you for sharing.
Amen.. Just, amen. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing. I don't think that most people begrudge those that really need help. As for politicians, they will say and do whatever they can to appeal to the masses. To get them elected. When we left the military, almost 18 years ago, we had to have help. We had two young children, I was pregnant and my husband couldn't find a job. I think leaving the military and going back to the civilian life is even harder than being in the military. At least in the military, you have a regular pay check, housing, and medical. When you leave~nothing! It's a rude awakening. So, I don't judge. I know all it takes is one lost job, or medical emergency to put you on that doorstep. BUT, I am concerned about our country. I am concerned about the future. Without some kind of change, be it higher taxes, spending cuts or something. The great nation that we live in is going to have some major problems. Do I know the answers, nope. But, I do hope that it works out for the best. And I do know that the shrinking middle class cannot sustain the whole nation. I have three grown daughters, who have a hard time making it. And they are single, no children, no spouse, no bills. The job market does not have the opportunities for these young adults to have a decent future. My husband and I have jobs~thanking God every day. We will not let them go without.We provide medical, housing, food. We do whatever we can to help and we do not tell them to go away and make it on their own. I do know that not all parents do this for their children/family. So why is it that we expect the Government to take care of our own, when so many who can afford to help their own will not? I do not ask the Government to give my children foodstamps/help/money. I will do that as long as I can afford to help them. That is what it's all about. In this day and in our country there are families that shun their own, refuse to help each other. Even when they can! But, yet we expect the programs from out country. There has to be a limit and line drawn somewhere. And somebody has to make those changes soon. Or times will become even more difficult than they are now, and we will all be part of that group looking for help.
powerful heartbreaking post my friend.
xx
Thank you for this. We are that family, too. And we are now at a point where we are going to lose some of the assistance Micah is entitled to, which means I have picked up 3 jobs to make up that loss. These jobs pay well under minimum wage, but they allow me to continue to be at home with my son so that I can advocate for him, take him to therapy, and be there for him because he wouldn't understand why I'm not. Life is not easy, and we don't complain. We simply ask that we not be judged.
Thank you.