The Boy Who Made It Out - The Great Depression

Growing up without being exposed to any form of religion, I often thought about how the world came to be. How did we get here? Is the story of Adam and Eve real? Or did dinosaurs rule the earth? No matter what you believe, we all come from a line of those who came before us. We are all tapestries of our ancestors woven together by love. I ponder on this thought as I sit across from my parents at the table in silence – the brown eyes I inherited from my mother and the curvature of my hands identical to my father’s.

When I was ten, I kneeled beside a bunk bed at my end of year school camp where my friend showed me how to pray for the first time. I recall him telling me to interlock my fingers, shut my eyes and name three things I was grateful for. I would close the prayer by thanking whoever it was I was talking to, I wasn't sure who I was talking to then, I'm still not quite sure now. Maybe the universe or an invisible god. Maybe a part of myself.

I didn't pray again until July 17th, 1932, (age 14), the day my little sister passed away. Fever took her, well whatever sickness she had. Or maybe it was the hunger.

Until Anna's passing, I believed death played a fair game. I was four years old when I experienced death for the first time - death welcomed my ill grandfather into his arms. Fair play. Then death turned on Anna and I learned he had greed dripping from his hands like honey. He did not discriminate.

That night, as I sat alone – clinging to the shell of my sister, I questioned where she may be now? Where do you really go after death? I still wonder if it was what she imagined, somewhere soft and innocent like her, a better place than here.

My thoughts drift off to the oak trees that still stand tall outside the ruins of our home. I wonder if her spirit is somewhere, traveling down the branches of those very trees, nesting under the bark, making a home in the wings of the ladybugs beneath. Not completely gone. Not entirely here. But somewhere near.

Maybe she is lying in the arms of some kind of god, or maybe she is reunited with our grandfather. Maybe he met her at the gates and called her name in a way she hadn’t heard since our childhood. And took her home.

But what if she’s alone? No god. No ladybug. No grandfather. Just eternal darkness and loneliness, equally, infinite stomach growls and hunger.

I'm still sitting at the table as I bring my thoughts back to the present, my least favourite time. I enjoy bathing in the past, such a simpler time.

The room has gone quiet again, the kind of quiet that screams everything we've lost. Papa’s hands tremble slightly as he slices the stale bread into three thin pieces. He’s trying to make it look like more than it is. He always does that.

There’s a fourth mug on the table.

Full. Just like the others.

But there’s no fourth person.

Oh, how I miss my sister.

She used to hum when she was hungry, Anna. She said it made her forget the ache in her tummy. She hummed right up until the morning she died. No one hums anymore.

“Eat, George.” Mama says quietly. Her voice cracking. I know she’s trying not to cry. I shake my head. My stomach growls in objection, but I ignore it.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Don’t make this harder for us, boy,” Papa mutters. “We worked days for that. You eat it. You will eat it.”

But I don’t cave to their protest. I keep looking at Anna’s mug. She’d never miss a meal, not even the crusts. She’d giggle and say, “It’s like chewing leather, but fancy leather!”

Papa must be thinking the same as me, feeling the same sadness, the type of sadness that really is just anger wrapped in a thick layer of grief.

Papa stands violently banging one fist on the table in protest. His voice breaks slightly:

“Herbert Hoover won’t you hear me? Why won’t you give me a job?”

I’m not sure who he’s talking to, but there’s no reply. It’s silent for a moment before mama motions for him to sit back down.

The sudden outburst makes me pick up my bread. It crumbles a bit in my hands. I chew slowly, trying not to taste it. I want to hate it, but I can't. I've missed swallowing something whole and I know Mama skipped her lunch so I could have this.

We're gonna end up like Anna if we have to keep living like this. Surviving meal to meal. Nickel to nickel. Maybe one day society will care. But it’ll be too late for people like us.

I finish the bread and slide my mug across the table.

“For Anna,” I say.

Papa rests his eyes and nods. We raise our mugs for a toast. No one says anything, but we drink like it’s holy water. Maybe it is. There’s no food left, but tonight, at least, we remember Anna.

I bring myself back to the part of me who is ten years old, praying on his knees at school camp. He still lives inside me.

And so, I let myself believe in something.

I believe in memory, in legacy, and in the love that remains even after a person is gone.

I believe that type of love can defeat any challenge that threatens its peace.

Love shouldn’t have made it out…but it did.

I shouldn’t have made it out…but I did.

As for Anna, I’ll find out where she truly is one day. For now, she is everywhere and everything at once. I feel her dancing in the wind. I see her glistening in the night sky when it’s dark and the stars are the only thing guiding our way. She is everywhere, but nowhere to be found. That is her final vengeance.

Original story written by Summer Rodger