A Mom's Love

Lunch in high school was a big social event and served as a much anticipated refresher between morning and afternoon classes. But for me, lunch was something I dreaded.

Right after my 4th period class I would go straight to the library and do homework or study. I wouldn't call myself a nerd but I never really had close enough friends to actually sit down and eat with. I used to blame this on the fact that all of my close junior high friends went to different high schools on the other side of town but now I see that it was also partly my reluctance and fear in making new friends. Everyday as I passed by the cafeteria, I would glance in envy at how people sat at the tables and happily ate and shared their lunches with their friends while discussing the day's events. And I also envied how people called each other during lunch to meet up and eat out downtown. Technically, I could've still eaten by myself but I was too self-conscious for that. So, to the library it was.

For the rest of day I would endure the sharp hunger pains which usually hit around one or two, and feel slightly faint towards the end of my last class.

Like any other mom, my mom cared about my well being and would ask me after I got home from school how my day had been and if I had eaten lunch. I hated to lie but I didn't want my mom start fussing over me skipping meals so I would quickly answer yes and go to the kitchen. I don't know exactly when but at one point my mom began to get suspicious and started badgering me with more specific questions, like what I had eaten for lunch and who I had eaten with. Unfortunately, my brothers and sister went to the same high school as me and had noticed that I didn't eat. Of course, they told my mom and one day as I was heading out the door to go to school she hurriedly slipped something into my backpack before I could protest: a homemade sack lunch in a clear plastic ziplog bag.

As usual after 4th period, I made my way to the library where I sat down at a desk in a discrete corner and took out the bag. The lunch was relatively simple, food I could easily and silently eat in the library without making a mess or too much noise to attract the library patrol ladies and get caught (I realized why she had used a ziplog bag instead of a brown bag). There were cherry tomatoes, grapes and already peeled oranges in a small tupperware, a banana, some saltine crackers, a juice box, and a Nature Valley granola bar. Even though it was nothing extravagant, I could feel my mom's love for me through the food and was convinced that it was the best food in the whole entire world. The emotion I felt was overwhelming, enough to make me choke on my food. It was both healthy and satisfying and it reminded me that no one, with the exception of God, cares and worries about me like my mom does. The food got me through the day and when I brought home the ziploc bag empty, my mom smiled, pat me on the back and said, "Good girl." My mom continued to sack me lunches after that and I was always extremely grateful for them.