Relief

I ate breakfast at the kitchen counter this morning. Sometimes I take my bowl of cereal out to the back porch on cool mornings like this, but today I stayed inside. It's easier to read the newspaper at the counter. The light is better and I can spread the sections out in front of me, leaving my hands free to hold a bowl and spoon.

I almost went with toast instead of cereal. I could have chosen between whole wheat or oat grain, and I know there are at least two kinds of delicious jam in the refrigerator. It was tempting. I went with cereal largely because I didn't feel like waiting for the bread to toast. I chose something that claimed to be heart-healthy but I don't know if I believe it - it tasted too good. We have quite a few cereal choices in the house, a mix of grown-up, healthy, responsible offerings and kid-friendly, sweet, marshmallowy ones. I try to stick with the grown-up ones, but sometimes it's hard to resist the Lucky Charms.

I didn't think too much about my breakfast choices as I absently flipped through the newspaper. I mostly just read headlines, dropping occasionally into the first paragraph of some articles. In the World News section, there was a brief article about the famine in the horn of Africa. I read it and moved on to the next article, all the while scraping the last bits of food from my bowl.

Before long, I was into the Sports section and then the Comics. As I prepared to work on the sudoku puzzle, I got up to refill my coffee cup. As long as I was up, I considered having another bowl of cereal. The box was still out, so it would have been easy to refill. Instead, I decided that I'd had enough. I closed the box and returned it to the pantry, wedging it back into place on the bulging shelf. As I returned to my stool, I took one last look at the toaster. No, I would have toast tomorrow.

My wife had used the car the night before and, when I started it, the radio came on tuned to NPR. I caught the tail end of another famine story before switching over to the local sports station (the local pro-football team announced their first round of roster cuts - ten players no one has ever heard of). The station was broadcasting from the State Fair and the program was a mix of sports analysis and a discussion of the merits of mini-doughnuts and cheese curds.

As I sat down at my desk, I thought about my morning and about famine. I know famine is a terrible thing and I have felt moved to donate to relief efforts. But, I also know that famine is likely much worse than I can ever comprehend. I just don't have that frame of reference. I can imagine being hungry but I don't know that I know what it is like to be starving. And I can't even bring myself to imagine what it would be like to watch my children starve, or even be hungry for that matter.

I don't often ask anything of my readers but I urge you to consider donating to famine relief. Do a Google search on Horn of Africa famine, to learn more.