Hunger will always exist

My mother was born and raised in Germany. She had many stories to share with us but this is one that sticks vividly in my memory.

We can all easily recall times when we have been really hungry. As a child, sometimes it seemed forever until dinner was finally set on the table. I realize now that my mother was probably hungry, too, yet completed her preparations for dinner without snacking since she expected us to wait. Although my mother knew we wanted food, she also realized it was only a matter of minutes before she could provide it for us. We never had to miss a meal because there was no food in the house. Our hunger was a very short-term agony.

World War I ended in 1918. My mother was born in Germany in 1925, seven years later. That war was over but the effects were felt by many, almost all the way up to World War II. My grandfather was shot in the lung during World War I and spent the remainder of the war in a French prisoner of war camp. By the time he returned home to Germany, the damage was irrevocable and he died before he knew his first-born, my mother, was a girl.

Being a widow with a baby in post World War I Germany was no easy task. Food was scarce for those who couldn’t work and life was a constant struggle for my grandmother and mother. They knew hunger but always found enough to get them through another day. My mother told me once that spoiled cabbage and old potatoes wasn’t always just wartime fare. My grandmother never snacked while she prepared their meals because there was usually only enough for the meal, no more.

One day, when she was a child, my mother was in the nearby forest area. In a clearing, she saw three people in the distance. They were crouched down to the ground and moving along in this awkward position. When my mother drew nearer, she was shocked to see the people were dressed very poorly. And even more appalled to find that they were bent close to the ground, scrabbling up grass and eating it!

My mother ran for home and told her mother what she had seen. My grandmother immediately put together what food they had and they went back. The people where still there but hunger and exceedingly lean times had made them wary. Hunger had reduced them to an almost-animal state as they stared at the proffered food yet kept their distance. It was a while before they could be coaxed to take the food. When they did, they immediately hurried away, lest they lose this sudden windfall. My mother never saw them again.

I imagine the food my grandmother gave away that day, was probably all she had in the house. My mother, however, never made mention of going hungry herself that evening. She learned that hunger had degrees and they hadn’t reached a danger point.

When I feel the minute pangs of hunger that we all ‘suffer’ from time to time, I think back on this story. We are all blessed to have hunger pangs as it should remind us to be even more thankful when we sit down and say our thanks to God before we eat.