Starvation

Brianna Smith - 8th Grade Student:

It seemed like a good idea at the moment, fun actually. I know , I know ... one might think of starving yourself for 24-hours undesirable, but I thought of it as an opportunity to show how committed and “to your word” someone could be.

Surprisingly enough, I was nervous about the whole agenda, yet I still thought that I could power through it easily. The day of the event came like a bomb, fast and without warning, but I knew I was ready for it. With shaking hands I packed my snack for the next day, a sandwich, crackers, water, and chocolate, of course.

I arrived at school the next day ready to repeat my daily routine and prepare for the last meal that I would have for the next 24 hours. My heart raced with excitement and passion, but like everyone else in my class, I did not yet understand the meaning of the word “fasting” or “starving” and what they symbolized. While trying to come up with a decent definition of the two in my brain, I saw no words, but pictures.

As I tried harder and harder, I stumbled on a thought, or a vision you might say, that maybe these important but miss-understood meanings cannot be put into words. Maybe they had to be experienced or seen with the tenderness of your heart. The vision I portrayed in my head was not that of friends or of family wanting to eat after a long day, but of people that I do not know. These people looked starving or impoverished; they looked dirty and wet. There was a woman standing and two children beside her who looked to be about two or three years of age. The woman was looking straight at me, but where was I? I looked at the woman who had been, what seemed like, staring at me. She looked scared, hungry, and betrayed. Betrayed by the people that God himself said were her brothers and sisters.

The woman and her children were turned down by people that pass by them everyday and knowingly ignore them . But at the end of everyday the woman will pray for all her brothers and sisters, even the ones that pass her by everyday and don’t even turn to smile. She will pray for others who are sick and suffering because she knows that someone out there has it harder than she does. Someone out there is waiting for food just like her and is praying for their brothers and sisters as well.

There are millions of people that starve for days or weeks at a time. The words “fasting” and “starvation” don’t have a word definition, but can be defined by images of hungry faces, bodies, souls. One might not think of starving themselves for 24 hours as desirable but neither is living on the street, having a disease because of mal-nutrition, or even living in a shelter with no family or friends.

Fasting or famine means a lack of something, everyone can say that they are lacking respect or lack of talent. But some children who are born on the streets do not acquire respect, they do not acquire talent. The average person sees over 50 100 ads about helping the homeless, needy, or starving everyday. How many of us act on them, no one knows. We can change that we can start a new and better era that helps their brothers and sisters in times of suffering. We cannot change our world if we do not show that we want to change our world. It all starts with a little donation of time, prayer, and the gift of giving. So what does starvation mean and what does fasting mean? Each means people who have a lack of respect from their people and are spiritually, mentally, and physically starving. I will power through this; I will support my brothers and sisters. No matter what race what religion what country what cost I will be proud to no eat and witness slightly what it is like to live where and in the state that our distant family does.

Every time I stopped and thought about going to the fridge or the pantry to grab something to eat I stopped. I saw, in my head the faces of starving children and finally I knew where I was, I was among them I was with my family I was with my friends, and just for a moment I felt their pain I heard their cries.

At the end of our experience we were flourished with food of all sorts. For a moment I was ready to scarf down every ounce of food on the clean tables, but I stopped and looked at the food as if it disgusted me to highest extent, but what really made my stomach curl was the thought of knowing that I was given this for free. We, the students, did nothing to deserve it. Nothing. Of course we gave up food for a day, but how does that compare to someone who lives in huts with no clean water and not even a roof over their heads. We did nothing, but they, our brothers and sisters did everything. By fasting we lived a a day in their lives, but I could never imagine having that experience stretched over a lifetime.

“Pain doesn’t hurt if it’s all you’ve ever felt.”
-Jim Pathetine