Jimmy’d stopped telling his children about the old days. He was tired of them rolling their eyes at him, of his wife’s disapproving looks.
‘Times are different now! Let it go dad!’, his son would say, briefly looking up from his phone.
Jimmy agreed. Times were different now, but it was important not to forget how different they can be.
Jimmy was worried about his children. He felt they were soft, they had no fight in them, they were all about entitlement and relaxation.
Sometimes Jimmy felt it was his fault, he should have been tougher.
‘No honey! We are privileged that we could provide for them, give them this beautiful childhood! Life is hard enough as it is!’, his wife knew what he meant.
‘I know, I am just worried they will crumble at the first sign of difficulty!’, he sighed with all his might.
‘Well, if that happens we will be there for them …’
‘You know we will die at some point right?’, as he said the words he felt bad.
‘Hey, no need to be snappy! I am just trying to help!’
In moments like that he would withdraw in his shed and would remember the times he survived. Jimmy was so happy he had survived! Even all these years later he could not believe he had! Maybe that should be enough.
He had made it, he had a family, a place of his own, maybe he should just count his blessings and stop pestering his family with his long past demons.
Maybe if he kept bringing them up, he was just giving them more power over him. Maybe he was afraid to let them go, they had been with him for so long …
Sometimes, he would have a little whiskey from the bottle he had hid in the shed, and he would remember the really bad times, the ones that had made him who he was now.
‘Look at me Ma!’, and he would drink to the memories.
One of the things that had really driven him was the hunger. This was no metaphorical desire for a better life, it was the actual pain of being hungry, when your body screams for something, anything.
Jimmy still felt the taste of the biscuit he was given, and he remembered how he would not bite in the biscuit, he would just munch at the side in tiny bites, making it last as long as possible.
The hunger, the wish for survival, the cold of poverty, that is something he would never be able to forget, and something he would never be able to fully share with his children, maybe not even his wife.
That animal instinct that emerges when all your humanity is stripped away, and all that remains is the will to survive by any means necessary. When you pray to all the gods, to any god, just to carry you through!
His wife was right, he would conclude after enough whiskey, the children were lucky they did not feel that. As little as possible people should have to feel that. Just look at him, fifty years later and his life was still dominated by the hunger he felt as a child. His children were free and that is how life was meant to be lived.
Free from the fear of hunger.
‘Still, they are so soft…’ Jimmy thought.
‘They only care about eating and sleeping!’, he told his wife when she warned him that she wanted a quiet dinner.
‘You have to let them find their own way … as you did yours …’, her voice was calm and relaxed.
‘Fine! I will be in my study!’, he kissed her briefly and left.
‘Find their own way!’, he scoffed at the idea. ‘They couldn’t find their own nose if it wasn’t in the middle of their face!’
He used to live with hunger, now he lived with fear. Fear that his loved ones will not be able to face life’s challenges and cruelty.
‘Maybe they will be lucky … maybe they will not face any challenges and maybe you can help with that …’
Jimmy’s mood shifted. He could make sure his children were lucky, he could support that. He took out a pen, found a notebook and he started to map out the lives of his children, working to identify turning points where a stroke of luck might be needed.
‘This will be a bit of a challenge …’, he whispered to himself enjoying the prospect.
That evening dinner was pleasant for the first time in a long time. Jimmy, uncharacteristically, asked his children questions, listened to them. He seemed to actually take an interest and, taken by surprise, they were happy to share.
Getting to know them was the first step in Jimmy’s plan, and it seemed to work out better than expected. Maybe there was hope yet …