Photo given: Migrant Mother and her Children
Emily was tired. It seemed like she had spent her entire life fighting, and there didn't seem to be an end to the fight in sight. When she was younger, the fight wasn't too bad. It was only her and Jeb, and if they had to, they could go a night without food. In fact, their first year married, they often would share a meal that should have fed only one.
Jeb worked his fingers to the bone in the fields every day, late into the night. Emily cleaned the Abernathys's home each day and took in their laundry at night to earn money,t oo. Yet no matter how hard they worked, there was not always enough to go around. They became experts at juggling their finances. "Robbin' Peter to pay Paul," she can still hear Jeb say.
It wasn't long before their first little one came along, though. Sarah was such a blessing to them, and as their family of two became three, it seemed everything was going to be ok. Jeb got a raise, and the Abernathys shared Emily's name with another family, so she was cleaning two houses. The money stretched a little further, and they all went to bed with their bellies full every night.
Ten months after Sarah was born, Jeremiah came into the world two months early. Eighteen months later, the twins, Billy and Jilly, came along. Then there was Becky, Sam, and finally little Elizabeth. Their family swelled so quickly and by so many, it at first didn't seem like much of a difference, but soon things got almost too difficult. Emily and Jeb would fight, and the kids, who could hear them screaming through the paper-thin walls, would cry themselves to sleep almost every night.
When Elizabeth was two, Emily got the call she dreaded. Jeb had gotten caught in the baler and was killed. The grief crippled Emily for months, so by the time she was able to face the world again, she was already so far in a hole with her bills and debts, there was no way she would ever work her way out.
And now, the greatest humiliation and pain of all came. She lost the house she and Jeb were so proud of. It wasn't much -- just a two-bedroom, tar-paper wall house most would think was a shack. But it was their own. Jeb was so proud of it. And she had lost it.
Now, as she sat with the two youngest kids clinging to her, crying in her ear that they were hungry, and she didn't know what would happen next...or if she could even go on.
She was just so tired.
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