Give Till It Hurts

How Being Raised in the Old Homesteader Traditions Has Failed Me in a World Without Values.

I've always had a special appreciation for the old saying, "Give until it hurts." For some reason, it evokes a welcome memory of my grandmother when she was in her early 50's buzzing around her house preparing for one of many backwoods social calls from some great great uncle or third cousins or step-grand-niece and her new husband. That woman knew how to put out a spread. She cooked so well and so often that people came from miles around to share Sunday supper or a mid-week cup of coffee with home baked bread or biscuits or cookies. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that to her food was love, but she definitely loved feeding people, and I absolutely loved eating all of it.

My grandmother had a huge influence on me during the years after my parents divorced and I went to live with her and my grandfather for about 4 years of grade school. She worked full-time for the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Pineville, LA as a secretary, and there wasn't a day that woman didn't dress to the nines for work. She thrived on the attention her designer suits and high heels won her from the men at the office, though, like a dutiful wife many years beyond the expiration date of love, she came home at 6:00 on the dot five days a week and had dinner on the table by 7:00.

She taught me much about how people ought to behave and how they should treat others, whether they were family, neighbors, or strangers off the street. Everyone deserved a friendly smile, a kind word, and a hot meal if one was ready. While our little rural town wasn't much for diversity among its population nor its congregation, to those who stopped by or passed through, my grandmother was known high and low as a great gal who could cook like the devil. I wanted to be as well liked and appreciated as she was by those men and women in that community. I watched everything she did from the hours long night time ritual of her bath, moisturizers, and expert level upkeep regimen, to the precise and perfect way she ironed and folded load after load of laundry. Everything she touched was a perfection worthy of a fancy Southern magazine.

We were a poor family, I learned much later on. We didn't have much, and what we did have, we plucked from the earth or pulled from the streams. I treasure my childhood experience of growing up on a farm that fed my grandparents and me along with neighbors and extended family anytime they decided to drop by around supper time. In exchange for a free meal now and then, our family and neighbors would repay the kindness in great little ways like an evening of live fiddle and guitar right there in our living room, or a weekend's worth of babysitting to give my grandparents some time off from me while I got free swimming lessons. Even when the crops were light thanks to bugs or frost or when the fish weren't biting and the chickens weren't laying, we made due, and not a person who needed anything was ever turned away from my grandmother's doorstep. She literally gave until it hurt, and then a bit more on top of that.

I like to think I've made her proud while she was living. I hope she saw how much of her there is in me, and that she was flattered by my unwavering generosity to those around me in my life or just passing through it. I definitely feel the hurty part of giving more often than she ever had to endure, but regardless of the lack of reciprocation these days, I can't seem to stop giving of myself in whatever capacity I can when someone is in need of help. Even after being taken advantage of by ungrateful guys that survive by taking and taking, my heart won't let me not provide comfort or shelter or support however I can to those people again and again.

Sometimes I wonder if she would have continued had she ever been so unfortunate as to have encountered young gay junkies who are dope sick, gay for pay homeless hustlers trying to swindle a few bucks for diapers for their babies, and myriad other varieties of ne'er-do-well and miscreant out to take whatever they can from anyone who's kind enough, dumb enough, or weak enough to provide it in some form or another. Something tells me she would, though not without the wagging of a finger and a stern life lesson to go along with whatever generosity she bestowed upon them. Wisdom would be a part of that gift, and they'd be fools not to take and cherish it. Yet I would warn her how disrespectful and opportunistic the world has become hoping to shield her from the kind of treatment I've received myself while emulating her good spirit and kind heart.

It's a shame to see how different the world is today from the simple, friendly, neighborly one I remember growing up in for those few short years with my grandparents. Nowadays, folks don't have the same kind of understanding that goes without saying about how to repay kindness with kindness or how respect is always afforded to everyone until perhaps they prove themselves not deserving of it. A smile and a nod at a passerby on the sidewalk these days could just as easily win you a middle finger as it could a smile and a "Mornin'!". People have lost their kindness. They don't connect with one another in the same ways, and they are suspicious of those throwbacks like myself who insist on carrying on such antiquated traditions. My forthright conversation and my hospitable nature puts people ill at ease when all I want is to look after their comfort and make sure their time in my company is as pleasant and memorable as I can make it.

I don't know how to live in this world. Too often turned away, and almost never sought out for company, I have given till it hurts and have gotten more hurt as repayment. At some point, of course, it's got to become a case of "Shame on me.", because it doesn't make sense to keep on emptying my reserves of time, money, patience, and care on people who don't want it, don't like it, don't respect it, and won't appreciate it. I think I'd almost rather have a crafty hustler pull the wool over my eyes and feign some attraction and intimacy for an hour than to have my kindness repaid with name-calling or willful silence and utter ignorance of my person. At least if they lie to me, it perhaps costs them something in doing so. That's sort of a barter I suppose. It hurts, nonetheless. So I guess it's worth giving.