On the Loss of Things, and True Need

We've had a bad run of luck with things, lately.

Already, on this blog, I recounted the destruction last year of a laptop. (Dropped to the ground by adorable Loulou. So cute!) Then, last month, Ruby left her backpack on a city bus. Thankfully, we got that back, it's belongings all in place (including her brand new Kindle, which she had received for her birthday). Those 100th Street bus depot guys rock.

Earlier this fall, Josh bought a new bike for commuting to work, a fixie with orange wheels that he quite fancied, and within weeks it was snatched, from outside the Y where he was picking up Bella. Gone.

Then, on the first day of our recent family trip to Costa Rica, two of our backpacks were stolen. One of the backpacks held pull-ups, a portable potty, and a few changes of toddler clothes (the backpack itself was the one Ruby left on the crosstown bus--fated to leave us?), and the other held quite a few of the family's electronic gadgets, including the replacement laptop for the one that broke last year.

This last loss felt painful. I had been planning to do some writing while we were away--I had a freelance gig due on our return--and my means for doing so were gone. Our books and the e-readers they were stored on--gone. Our kids' entertainment for the return trip--also gone. Our camera to document the trip--ditto. Things that we had cared for, and cared about, and 'needed' were taken blithely, and there was nary a thing we could do about it. Enough things that we do not have the budget to replace them all, and will probably only replace a few.

In the day or two after, I felt waves of anger (It was just so unfair!) and sadness (But I'll never see these things again?) and guilt (We shouldn't have brought all that stuff with us. We should have been more careful.).  But more often I felt resignation and peace. I found myself saying, out loud: "Our kids are fine. We are fine. That's what matters."

Maybe we have to experience this kind of loss to appreciate what we have. I say that having spent some time in the past two days reading about the details of Dasani's life in poverty. The New York Times' profile of a homeless 11-year-old girl and her family living with so little, is wrenching in its details of what it means to be in need.

As I mentioned in a previous post, before Thanksgiving, we attended the kick-off for the West Side Campaign Against Hunger's Thousand Turkey Challenge, an annual fundraising (and turkey-raising) event to provide holiday food for the tables of poor New Yorkers. Bella and Ruby attended a discussion group for kids, in which they learned about the hunger and poverty cycles. There were a lot of kids in the room, which was refreshing to see. These kids need to know what it's like for the kids who weren't there on the fundraising night--the ones who come with their families during open hours for the food pantry, and "shop" for the food that sustains them. Food that is necessary, in a way that an e-reader or a camera will never be.

The turkey challenge was a fantastic success, which is good news for WSCAH and the families they serve. But the fact that the need is greater than ever, and that New York City's poor keeps growing, as the cost of living in this city rises and rises, is downright depressing.

Dasani imagines a video game called "Live or Die" in which winning means getting a house, and losing means returning to the shelter, "'which is death'". There are levels of need; Dasani's most basic needs--those of shelter and food--are barely being met.

If you want to talk about unfair, talk to her.

Thanksgivukkah Meshugana

Something about preparing to go away next week, as we've never done before (we usually stay local for the turkey holiday--so local that we walk to Thanksgiving dinner), has made my life cray-cray. Maybe it's the Thanksgivukkah (a word that I can neither spell, nor pronouce) thing that has sent me just this side of over-the-edge this week.

I'm not the only one. I've heard reports that one family member, a preschool teacher at a Jewish school, has been slightly manic trying to cover what should have been two separate months of curriculum over Hannukah and Thanksgiving: two staples of the Jewish preschool calendar. No doubt. Louisa came home today with a the classic hardware-nuts Hannukiah AND a "hand turkey". All in one day. It's enough to make your head spin.

I'm sure the unlikely confluence of these two first-semester holidays is what made our family decide to finally take the plunge and get on a plane to celebrate the most American of holidays in a foreign country (Costa Rica). I've celebrated Thanksgiving in England (something full-circle about that), but never in the tropics. I'm looking forward to eating local sweet potatoes (or some similar tuber) in a land at least closer to whence they actually hail (Did you know that there were no sweet potatoes--or any kind of potatoes, for that matter--in the Plymouth colony?--a little tidbit I picked up this week while researching a freelance story. Because domesticated potatoes come from South America, and they hadn't made it that far north yet, apparently...). Rum drinks and Thanksgiving sound appropriate, too. After all...rum, the triangle trade...it all brings back colonial history.

Bella is studying colonial history in school. There's a lot of talk, these days, even in elementary school, about the difference between history and myths. My girls are all over the "truth" about the first Thanksgiving. They ate oysters and clams! And venison! There was not a pumpkin pie to be found. Ultimately, the Thanksgiving story is about the triumph of needy humans over the scourge of starvation. The new Americans figured out, one way or another, how to eat and survive in their new, wild home.

Thanksgiving, like Hannukah, is so much about food. We eat the same things, year after year, such that we forget the origins of the ritual. I'm sure I thought, as a child, that kosher marshmallows were consumed by Native Americans and Pilgrims at their unified feast in 1621. In our family, we usually host a big Hannukah party. It has become our tradition to serve latkes and lox and (non-Beluga) caviar. Yum. Ask my girls and I would venture to guess they believe caviar is a Hannukah food.

Somehow, in the midst of this busy week of packing and finishing time-sensitive projects and cursing myself for not ordering sun-protective gear on the internet, since it is nowhere to be found in stores, we found time, as a family, to go visit a wonderful local organization with a mission to make sure every family in NYC can have a festive holiday meal. The West Side Campaign Against Hunger feeds thousands of families throughout the year. On Thanksgiving, the needy can receive a turkey, and all the accoutrements. For several years an interfaith coalition of synagogues and churches and schools have come together to raise money to support this mission. This year, both our synagogue and our school are members of the coalition.

On Tuesday evening, we attended the kick-off event for the Thousand Turkey Challenge. Bella and Ruby learned about the hunger cycle, and about food insecurity right here in NYC. I hope that they will appreciate our own feast even more, knowing that many families are guaranteed no such thing. Tzedakah and celebration go hand in hand, and what better way to celebrate Hannukah on Thanksgiving, than to donate some gelt to a worthy organization dedicated to feeding the hungry. Please consider donating a turkey, by clicking here.

Happy Thanksgivukkah!