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blog of April 26^th

Welfare Mamas

     Yesterday I was at a memorial service for the wonderful lady I use to sponsor and she had decided to drink again.  One of her sponsee/friends was sharing about their relationship and how Cindy had taught her so much.  She talked about coming into the program and being on welfare and thought she pretty much had it made. Cindy taught her different, to expect more in her life. 

    Then, I went to see my sister, she is slipping away and as much as we’ll miss her, we want her out of agony.  All her beautiful children, grand kids and great kids are there all around her. I was flooded with memories of when her were all little and my sister, in fact, all of us girls (four of us) were on welfare, having babies and living life like rock stars! Lol

     My sister Judy was super good at making big delicious meals out of nothing.  There was a time, before food stamps were invented, that we would go down to the train tracks and pick up “commodities” once a month and man, she could make that food work.   Beans, rice, cheese, macaroni, powdered milk and some kind of canned meat, I think they called it chicken. Lol

     Besides the food situation, she managed to keep the bills mostly always paid. Her kids had clean clothes, structure and church.  Lots of love and attention, all five of them, and then some. She also had my niece and nephew most all of the time and she took care of me, a lot.  I’d live with her from time to time.  She is twelve years older than me and I adored her.  She was more like a second mom to me at times than a sister.

     I remember telling my sister when we were shopping at a White Front store, circa 1971, that my goal was to have a baby and go on welfare. I thought that was the coolest thing.  We were checking out and the cashier heard me and shook her head. Lol.  Judy didn’t say much.  But, within no time, I had a baby.  My adorable, sweet little boy that I love more than anything.

    Then I had another baby and the welfare money, food stamps and Medi-Cal were great, what a great country we live in. And we had good doctors, the best.  It was amazing how they kept sending me free money for all them years. 

      I was still on welfare when I got clean, but I had been working off and on since before I had babies.  I often worked under the table in bars and dives.  I worked in Biker bars and other dangerous places before I was even 21.   Drugs flowed abundantly in these establishments.

      I also went to school from time to time, again, it wasn’t until I got clean that I finally went and stayed and finished, picked up a few diplomas.  But evidently, it was my welfare status that attracted guys to me.  Especially the one I have now, yes, we’ve been married over 36 years now, and together for 40, but he has told me that when we met, he was looking for a “welfare mama”.  I guess that’s a good reliable income.  Lol.

     Being on welfare certainly was a blessing, it kept my kids fed, kept us housed- mostly, they had clothes, and medical care, which was very important.  But it also kept me down.  Again, I had to get clean and find out that there was much more to life than collecting a small amount of free money from the government.  With that “free” money came the loss of other freedoms.  I had to account for all of my life to them.  All my belongings, broken down old cars, bank accounts and so on. For that reason, I did not keep a bank account for years, or ever file taxes until I was clean awhile.

     But now here ya go, the fun part of being a welfare mama was hanging out all day with my sisters, smoking, drinking, using, hitting the bars in the day time, and the night time. Running down my connections, life was one big party- all the time.  My accountability to the welfare department, aka the government was worth it to me – at the time.

    But when you (I) took the party away, the whole, staying poor and attached to government stings lost its attraction for me.  I wanted more. And guess what, so did my sisters.  We all ended up with some kind of training or education and got pretty decent jobs, making way more than welfare money and planning for retirement. Which, I’m feeling pretty good about.

     Drugs have a way of keeping us down in ways we don’t even realize.  I was on a road to nowhere. Well, death and destruction for sure, without ever have accomplishing anything.  Just a little side note, Judy and I took a trip to England and Ireland in 2005, after her husband died, we could have never done that on welfare, or on drugs!

     Yesterday when I went to see my sister, as sad as it is to watch her like that, I also seen her beautiful home, her beautiful- successful kids and adorable grandkids. The love and respect that pours in all around her.  Judy did not ever use drugs like the other three of us girls.  Neither did my hard-working brother. But she made bad choices in men and was caught up in the insanity of our addictions, because we (her three sisters) were off the hook. She was very co-dependent, but she loved us so much.  Because of her, child protective services were never called.  

     Say what you will about us “Welfare Mama’s”, but we do have heart, love and compassion.  I was sustained until I could- with God’s help, pull myself together. But welfare also perpetuated my addiction and free-loader life style. Until God woke me up! My sister Judy also gave me a lot of encouragement to do better.

     I’ve done many things I’m ashamed of in my addiction and I won’t ever be talking about a lot of them on these blogs, but I do want to stress the freedom I found when I was finally able and willing to work and support myself and family.  Now, this is a real freedom!

      But yet, I sit here and remember fondly those days of oldies playing while we chilled or cleaned house at my sisters and her, doing her wash on a ringer washer, that’s all they could afford. And making tortillas from scratch every morning.  The beans and rice always seemed to be cooking on the stove and we laughed, danced, sang and loved each other and our kids.  We lived in the hood and walked to the corner market for RC cola, beer, wine and beef jerky and chicharronies! We got our little checks on the first and the fifthteenth and went to Bakers for like 30 tacos and 10 fries if the check came on Taco Tuesday!  Lol.  We hung out in parks and let the kids run wild and play while we laughed, talked, drank, smoked, and for some reason, it felt like we didn’t have a care in the world, that can’t be true, or could it? 

     If I only knew then what I had, I would have stayed longer, stopped and cherished the moments, hugged them more, put more kids on my lap and hugged them. I just would have spent a little more thoughtful time with them all, my welfare mama’s, my sisters.  Oh, what a gift we were given.  Yes, it was, it was a gift, thanks to my sister Judy, she held us together like that, even though we were poor, we were so so rich!