“If you’re really hungry, you’ll eat scrapple,” said the older woman from our church, as she reached into a brown paper grocery bag. She pulled out a grayish brick of the cheap, Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast meat, made from pork scraps such as the feet and head meat, and set it on my mother’s counter top with a thud.
Twenty years later, I still cannot believe how my mother held it together while the woman, silver hair tightly knotted in a bun, pointer-finger extended, lectured her on frugal eating while my father was unemployed. The woman had lived through the Great Depression and had experience with stretching every last cent. She probably meant well. Her presentation, however, was very gruff and condescending.
As soon as the woman’s car left our driveway, my mom burst into tears. “I can’t help it that your dad lost his job!” My mom, one of strongest women I know, shook with sobs of profound hurt and anger. “People know you’re desperate and they just throw junk at you and then want a pat on the back for it,” she cried. “Six month ago, when I had your brother, that same woman brought over a beautiful, elaborate meal made with lots of love. Why can’t she put the same kind of thoughtfulness into this?”
I wrapped my arms around my mother’s neck and cried with her. The crazy way her thick, dark wavy hair stuck to my tear-streaked cheeks made us break into laughter. She pulled the strands of hair off of my face and smiled at me. “We are going to survive this,” she said with determination.
Gifted food like scrapple kept us fed and bags of very worn, two-decade-old hand-me-downs delivered in greenish-black garbage bags kept us clothed. Sometimes my mom would modify the clothes to make them fit or deconstruct them and use the fabric make something a little more stylish. (There’s a lot of extra fabric to be found in bell bottoms!) I am thankful for these provisions from the bottom of my heart. I also am thankful for my mom’s resourcefulness.
