Food for My Child

Turning the Tables on the Food Crisis!

The US Food Sovereignty Alliance launched on World Food Day 2010. Since October, representatives from member organizations have been dialoguing with grassroots organizations, faith groups and coalitions -- primarily in the United States but linked to the global movement for food sovereignty -- to create an alliance for positive change. The Presbyterian Hunger Program has been an active member since the groups came together as the US Food Crisis Working Group, which formed in reaction to the 2008 global food crisis. PHP has been collaborating as the ad-hoc coalition formalizes and invites groups to join together to remake sustainable food economies everywhere so they serve people, both consumers and producers. Theologians from around the world were invited to reflect on the need to turn the tables on an often unjust food system and one of them, Sofia Oreland, despite the fact that she was due with her second child, responded. Here is her reflection...

Food for My Child

By Sofia Oreland
Sweden Theologian and Policy Advisor, Education and Mobilization, Church of Sweden

I gave birth to a child, Baby Brother (Lillebror, the name his sister gave him). Everything seemed fine. But when Baby Brother was only eight hours old doctors discovered he had several life-threatening heart problems. We were given emergency transport to the Swedish hospital that performs pediatric heart surgery. Once in his unit, Baby Brother shared an observation room with three others, with staff persons continuously supervising their young patients. Baby Brother’s surgery was postponed twice, the first time due on an onset of sepsis, the second time because the ICU was full. We spent two weeks, anxiously waiting and watching him.

Baby Brother was too tired to nurse, partly due to the heart problems, partly due to the strong life-sustaining medication. But every day I gave him the breast, hoping that this was the day he would have the strength to eat. After a couple of courageous attempts he always fell asleep. He was too tired. This was painful to watch. But then one day it happened: he was able to eat one whole meal! It was a fantastic feeling of liberation, relief. I was all smiles and when I looked up I discovered two African women, at the bedside of an older boy, watching me with Baby Brother in my arms. They saw my joy, our eyes met, and there, below their veils, their faces broke into big smiles as well. It was evident that they understood, that they were able to share my emotion and deep joy.

Now in retrospect I wish I had had the energy to ask them who they were, from where they had come, and how their lives had been. What brought them to Sweden? Were they born here or had they been forced to flee from war, famine? Or had love brought them here? Most likely they were here for sad reasons, rather than joyful ones. The boy who was ill and waiting for heart surgery seemed to be about ten years old. Was he born in their home country? Would he have survived if he hadn’t been offered heart surgery in Sweden? If he was born in their homeland, would his mother who now faithfully watched over him at his bedside been able to provide food for him? Would she have experienced the terror of not having enough food for her child? Or the feeling of powerlessness, seeing him too exhausted from hunger or illness to be able to eat?

During my stay at the hospital with Baby Brother I was too exhausted to be able to relate to people I didn’t know. I didn’t have the strength to ask the questions I now wish I had asked. Much less would I have had the strength to fight for my child’s right to an operation, if that had been necessary. But I am fortunate to live in a country with advanced medical care, available for all regardless of income or access to private insurance. I didn’t have to fight for my child’s right to surgery. If that had been the case, I would have needed someone else to do that for me, to take up my fight. My child’s fight. If not, he would have died.

To turn over tables like Jesus in the temple, or in the rooms where decisions are made that influence people’s access to food, demands strength and indignation. A mother with no food for her child, or with a child too weak to eat what little food there is, hardly has the emotional strength to cry out her frustration and powerlessness. Much less does she have the energy to turn over tables to get the attention of those in the position to make decisions, to force them to take responsibility. Both mother and child need food, but someone else has to be their advocate for the time being, fighting for their right to food.

My son’s surgery was successful and now we are back home and have celebrated Christmas together for the first time. I have plenty of food for him. And Baby Brother hardly stops eating. What a joy and God’s blessing to see him grow and gain weight! To leave the stage of sunken eyes and growing thin. He’s becoming more and more social, and his babbling is so cute, a kind of conversation with those that have the patience to listen. Maybe he is telling us about how hard everything has been, about all the pain he has experienced and the longing for human closeness when he was restrained in his bed, hooked up to all the tubes and monitors. Maybe he is telling us how glad he is that it is all over! That he is well.

I so wish that the hungry mother could experience the same. That she could eat well and feed her child so that she, too, will be able to see her child grow, becoming stronger and gaining weight daily. That she could hear her baby babbling and attempting to communicate. That she, too, could be able to share her child’s pain for what has been, and share the joy over how things have turned for the better. That she would be able to hold her child, rock it and say, “It’s fine now. Everything is fine.”

I am convinced that she wished she could change her child’s situation on her own, that she would be able to fight for its right to eat, for its right to survival and health. But until she has that strength herself, we who surround her, we who dare to look into her eyes and see her despair, must fight her fight for her. With the hope that one day we will be able to meet her eyes and see her joy – that heavenly joy of being able to provide food for your child.

Comments

[Topsoil Suppliers]

With all we can do in the world today, feeding people should be easy, and yet there are still people in the world starving.When will this all end or be fixed?

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