A Young Candy Daughter

In 2004, when hurricanes were besieging the Caribbean, I posted the full text of this story on my web site over Christmastime, with a tip jar and a note that I would donate all the proceeds for Caribbean hurricane relief. People responded generously. It was good to be able to do something to help. Here's an excerpt from "A Young Candy Daughter:"

The child pulled a handful of candy out of the Salvation Army pot and, with a look of intense concentration, flung it in an arc away from its body. Other children at the street corner broke free of their parents scrabbled for the candy. So did one woman, her feet bare and black-bottomed, her body burly only because she seemed to be wearing anything she'd ever owned, in dirty and torn layers one atop the other. She clutched two packets of tamarind balls and five peppermints to her bosom with one hand. In the other hand she held a purple lollipop. As she scuttled into a corner, she tore the lollipop wrapper away with her teeth.

The Salvation Army Santa Claus stared at the child's mother. "It didn't have any sweeties in there before," he said.

In response, she only grinned. Worlds in that grin; miracles. Somewhere, a leader was shot, and a gull swooped down over the waves and caught a fat fish for its young. "La'shawna," she said to the child —- a girl, then -— "people want more than sweeties to fill their belly."

Post script: a few days after I pulled the story down, the tsunami of December 26, 2004 occurred off the coast of Sumatra, killing over 300,000 people in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania.