1Pride...
Pride cometh before a fall...
The words are so true. I've seen this happen before, to many in the old country. Our friends, neighbors, family...
When the potato crops brought no money, pride was there
Next year, Next year we will bring in a harvest.
Next year the potatoes will be brown and whole, not spongy sacs of spores
We can make do, tighten the belts a little , followed by a weak chuckle that made me want to scream
Too proud to ask for help, ashamed to enter a soup kitchen, afraid what we would think
But we knew who went to the soup kitchens and who didn't. I did. My mother would send me out every week, Thursday, the one day my father wasn't home. He couldn't work anymore. There were no potatoes to harvest, and so no seeds to plant
He would be angry if he knew, My mother told me, "And the quickest way to kill a man is to kill his pride"
Better to kill a mans pride, than to starve his children but leave his pride intact.
For the children were dying...Faye and Hannah, Ellen, Timothy,
their parents moved on but I remembered. My brother did too back then. Back before he stopped caring
She smuggled us out, took everything they had and bought us boat tickets. In America there was food . We could start over.
She said we could walk to a market and see stands of food, Vegetable, meat, even potatoes, whole potatoes brown
Something I barely remembered.
So we left. My brother was bitter angry that my mother made him leave. His pride left no room for reality. He stopped seeing the deaths. The false optimism that was the result of his pride had clouded his vision.
I never had that pride. Its hard to be proud and boastful when you must depend entirely on others to survive. A blind girl wandering the streets is in great danger
He stopped fighting
He lost all his optimism the day they died. They had been feeding us. Lying to my brother about eating at some one else house, and I could not see that their plates were bare.
They died, we had no reason to stay.
Had no reason to hope,
No reason to dream
My mother was right
For my brother was dying, He survived on pride alone while we stayed,
And when we left, he had nothing.
He was broken
beaten down and broken
I saved him, forced him to eat, to drink, to bathe
We arrived, I found him a job.
I needn't have bothered. For I saved his pride, but his heart had died
To save his heart, I was too late.
All he had left was his accursed pride
Andrew Jones was gone.
All that was left was a newsie called Skittery
He should have been a man of 19
but he wasn't all he was
was a broken boy
Skittery, Not Andrew
Andrew loved me
Skittery was ashamed of having a blind sister to support.
He was convinced the boys would somehow mock him for that
He left me in the apartment while he lived with the newsies
eventually he stopped remembering to pay my rent
I had to live on the streets
I could not find him. A blind girl wandering the streets of New York was in trouble indeed
He never remembered
So I stayed on my corner
Wasting away
till I was found by a boy
A boy who knew how to depend on others, at times was forced to
But it did not break him
He kept his dignity
I was saved that day
By a boy named Crutchy
I love him because he is not a slave to the dreadful beast...
Pride
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