Maybe you have seen a group of hunters come back into the village carrying fresh game between them. Likely it was the end of the winter season. After the frost has broken and the Northern pass has been cleared from this season’s avalanches. You can see for what seems like miles through the brisk morning air. And you know for certain that the little dots you see speckling the horizon signify your weeks of waiting for a dinner filled with protein will soon come to an end. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.
Finally a dinner made up of more than soaked cabbage and boiled potatoes. One that does not require you to decide you are full instead of truly being full. A dinner that requires chewing, not merely mashing. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.
You have woken every morning with little more than a grumble in your stomach, looking out the window of the hay loft where you sleep with your siblings. Hoping that today might be the day when the reprieve will come. Arriving with the food will be your father and uncles. They are tired from the trip, but excited by the welcome the community will provide. Mother and your older sisters will be busy all afternoon in preparation and maybe even you will join in the work. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.
Your memory does not include the negative attributes of such a day. How your older brother pushed the youngest to the side to get in line. Or how your uncle took all the credit for what was clearly a group effort. That the choice meat when off to your neighbor because your family still does not own the land or the house. Or even that your mother after all her hard work got no affirmation but instead went to begin cleaning up the mess. You simply went back to the loft and found yourself dreaming of the distant lands of your father’s hunt.
Soon it will be Girl Scout Cookie time. No doubt you have your favorites and memories from past years. Maybe you have never witnessed the mayhem and ugliness that accompanies this time. You look past the coworker, well into her 60’s, that demands she get two of her choice even though she made no previous order. Or the one that is shouting across the office instead of walking his old bones to where the calories lay in wait. Or the most pathetic, the person who loses a year of maturity with every step she takes toward your desk. The one that sinks from a well respected and capable peer to the conduct of a 2 year old. All of this because she saw her favorite cookies walk past and was told there will be no more. She is nearly in tears as she explains how much it would mean if you could please find another box. That you must find another box. She is unable to understand that you are not a retail store, and put bluntly you simply do not care if gets her thin mints. If she’s looking for thin she’s better off where she is with no box of cookies.
All you see are the pictures of smiling teens playing sports, learning about nature, and accomplishing their goals. You glory in every one of those young lives growing and maturing into the woman they can be. These wonderful feelings accompany the taste and smell of the cookies you were fortunate enough to receive. It will be a good night’s sleep tonight.
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