Tante Hanni and Boo Bo

Aunt Hanni was the other angel with no wings who helped save our lives. Because without food.. well you know, you die. Mom would sit at the table crying and saying: “Sorry kids, there’s no food..” This was no shock for us , it was totally normal. I once ran into the fields to find something to eat.. anything. There were sugarbeats a whole big field of them. I thought to myself, that if I’d pull one out of the ground and take it home, then N0 1, I would be able to feed our rabbits with the sugarbeet leaves, and the beet itself.. well maybe we could shred it and eat it, sorta like you would eat a salad? Not a bad idea I figured, in fact I thought it was a real smart idea. So I pulled one of those big beets out of the field, grabbing it by it’s lushes and big green leaves. Oh horror, I heard the racing hoofs of horses.. and saw the farmer who owned this field racing toward me. He was mad I could tell by the way he beat up on his 2 horses to hurry and catch that thief. Quickly I put the precious beet into my basket and covered it with weeds and grass.
By that time the farmer got to where I was and he screamed on the top of his lungs for me to get lost and to not dare touch his beets. Then he recognized me.. yes he did and he said: “What do you know, the pastor’s daughter in my field.. stealing my beets, unbelievable!” I was beet red and so embarrassed, it seemed to be my fate, I was indeed the pastor’s daughter but by no means an angel. In fact, I was an embarrassment to the pastor, being forever the ‘wild one’, the one who just wasn’t able to be and / or act “properly” always being a wild child.
I don’t really know why or what gave me this reputation, I was just being myself ! Now stealing was not in my mind when I pulled that beet out of that field.. because stealing and hunger somehow can’t go together.. or can they? So I asked him humbly if I could have this beet. But he had already turned around his horses and sped of, mumbling something that I didn’t understand. I picked up my basket.. and ran home, all excited, could not wait to show mom my “heist”. Mom looked at the beet and she said: “Did you steal this beet?”, and I said: “No.. I just took it because we can make a salad out of it, and we can feed our rabbits too, see?” Well, not good enough for mom.. She ordered me to take back into the field that stolen beet asap.. because even though we were starving, we were no thieves. Utterly confused and crying by now, I grabbed my wares, ran back to that field and I put that beet back into the hole I created, when I pulled that darn thing out. Fine, we were honest, but one of us could have keeled over at any time and be dead of hunger. Moral of this story? I learned that to be honest is more important than life itself. Now.. if that’s the right way of thinking I have not figured out to this day. Somehow though I have never forgotten it and can honestly say, I never stole anything again and to this day am very clear about : Mine versas Thine.. if that makes any sense? To me it does in some still to this way confuzzled way. Life can be cruel.. and sometimes can interfere with deeply held values that have to be pushed aside. In the case of survival versas thieving, I think thieving wins, because that survival instinct is one of the strongest things housed in the human being. Right? Well, me.. I think so.
I never asked anyone’s opinion on this subject.. so I have to live with my own opinion , as confuzzled to this day, as it was then, so be it…. end of my ” thieving a beet” story ! Aunt Hanni still has to wait, because I keep getting derailed by all the thoughts and memories that seem to be rushing.. even screaming at me, to get out, out there.. to someone, anyone who would care to read my rambling, ah, but it feels so good to finally talk about it.. get it out there, and maybe it will touch a nerve with someone who has been in an equal situation.. someone who will understand why one can be befuzzled so much.