Applying for Assistance

Applying for assitance from the government feels wrong. I'm not sure why though. I am a good citizen. Never in trouble with the law. I pay my taxes. I have always worked when work was available. I teach my children to be patriotic and I cried for months after 9/11.

I do however realize that my children have to eat. We filled out the required 10 pages of paperwork, supplied our bank statements, social security cards, proper identification and more.When we went to the agency for our appointment, they were very kind. I somehow did not feel belittled in anyway. We explained that we had recently moved across the stateline. Sadly, I might have been able to have my past medical bills paid except that we were living in one state and I was receiving treatment in another. I later cried that night. Sometimes hindsight is a terrible thing to see. And I could have had some help with the mountain of medical bills that sat on the shelf in my closet. 25K and daily interest. Lovely. Needless to say, because we had nothing, we were able to receive medical coverage and put square meals on our table at night.

There seems to be a degrading connotation that goes with having no money. If one is on food assistance or medicaid it's because:

they are lazy
they are uneducated
there is a physical or mental ailment that prevents them from functioning normally
they live in squalor
they don't want to get off of assistance
they have problems with drugs or alcohol
they have babies so they can stay in "the system"
they live in downtrodden homes and neighborhoods
there is abuse in their homes: physical, emotional, substance and more

Granted, the above does describe some of the citizens of America. But, decent, hardworking, home owning and college educated people do lose their jobs. They do get sick. They do have children that have dreams of becoming history teachers and doctors. They love their children with a never ending, bottomless pit kind of love that they feel only God can relate to. They make changes to better their lives and the lives of their families by making changes in their careers especially when their sanity depends on it.

These people cry tears behind closed doors that can fill a swimming pool.

I know. If I owned a yard for that pool, my pool would be 12 feet deep and large enough for a neighborhood pool party.

I was the one that got sick. I have one child that dreams of becoming a history teacher and another that wants to be a doctor. Husband that I love was college educated and dying inside from a career that was heading nowhere. It was a painful thing to see my spouse inundated with feelings of terrible self worth and not being able to overcome thoughts of never being good enough. I was the one that loved my family so passionately that I knew changes needed to happen if we were to be a minority in the world: a married, intact family unit.

So here we sat in the welfare office witha kind and patient case worker. All five of us in clean clothing and my children were well mannered and old enough to know that we were poor. We swallowed any pride we had so that our children could go to the doctor and eat. We were approved for six months or until our circumstances changed.

We got our EBT card and went grocery shopping. It felt like Christmas morning.