More Than Supper Required

She was a scrawny thing: small, undernourished, needy. My roommate introduced me to her. More like Laka introduced herself to my roommate and I got thrown in on the bargain. Laka was ten years old when I met her. She was in the lower grades of the school where I held my first teaching job. Her family lived down the street from my house, but they were a strange family. . .It didn’t seem like they noticed their daughter very much let alone feed her very well. She seemed to be more like a stray animal than a child.

She would drop by my house at night with a hungry look on her face. I would ask her, “What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Instant noodles.” She would say.

“Lunch?” I quizzed her down.

“Instant noodles.”

“Supper?”

“Instant noodles.”

It was always the same. She had eaten something she cooked herself-- something easy and cheap for a ten-year-old to make.

“Come in.” I would tell her. Then I’d feed her a portion of my supper. Because Laka was small and overlooked she could be awkward at times. I remember she was not ashamed to ask for more food. If I had anything on my shelves she would point at it, “What is that? Can I have it?” If we left anything sitting around she would pick it up. She once grabbed my roommate’s camera and started taking pictures. My roommate and I decided after that if she ate with us she would have to follow our house rules. “No touching” we would tell her. “Laka, ask before you take things,” we would scold her.

My most vivid memory of her was on Saturday afternoon we went for a walk together. I remember she took my hand and held it as we walked down the street. Strangely enough my strongest emotion was shame. I was embarrassed to be seen walking down main street with this child clinging to me. I was worried that people might laugh at me for being so conned by her.

True, I had enough compassion to feed her, but I did not enough courage to love her. True, she always stopped by my house after I was exhausted from work. True, she wanted to spend every Saturday with me (my only day off). True, she was inconvenient. But why didn’t I love her more? She needed so much more than my begrudging offer of supper.