Cro­ker sacks full of grits were all that Kya had left in 1956, a bit­ter sym­bol of her strug­gle to sur­vive alone after her abu­sive father, Pa, stopped return­ing to their decay­ing shack in the marsh­es. At just ten years old, Kya was now ful­ly respon­si­ble for her own sur­vival, fac­ing the real­i­ty of com­plete iso­la­tion in the untamed wilder­ness. As days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, she braced her­self for the real­i­ty that her father’s depar­ture might mean the per­ma­nent absence of both par­ents, leav­ing her with noth­ing but her own resilience and resource­ful­ness. The once sparse pro­vi­sions in the shack, now dwin­dling away, had been reduced to only a small amount of grits, a few match­es, a sliv­er of soap, and a fleet­ing hope that per­haps her father would return. But that hope quick­ly fad­ed as the cold, harsh win­ter approached, mak­ing the sur­vival of the bare essen­tials even more crit­i­cal.

Kya, now com­plete­ly on her own, was forced to learn the art of sur­vival in the marsh­lands that had once been a place of com­fort and solace for her. The crick­ets and birds were the only sounds she heard as she grap­pled with lone­li­ness, try­ing to hold on to the frag­ments of her child­hood that still lin­gered in her mem­o­ries. One par­tic­u­lar­ly sober­ing real­iza­tion came when she found her­self with­out enough kerosene to light the lamps that had always kept the dark­ness at bay. With the extin­guish­ing of that light came a more pro­found darkness—a metaphor for the loss of warmth, not just phys­i­cal­ly, but emo­tion­al­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly. The absence of light was sym­bol­ic of the empti­ness she now felt, a void left behind by her father’s dis­ap­pear­ance and the dis­ap­pear­ance of any hope for the safe­ty and love that once defined her child­hood. Despite her fear of aban­don­ment, Kya con­tin­ued to hold her­self togeth­er with an indomitable spir­it, rely­ing on the nat­ur­al world around her to sus­tain her.

Her days in the marsh, filled with strug­gles and the neces­si­ty of man­ag­ing her small stock­pile of sup­plies, forced Kya to adapt in ways she hadn’t antic­i­pat­ed. The grits, once an essen­tial part of her diet, became the basis of her sur­vival, but with­out the means to cook them prop­er­ly, they turned into a sym­bol of how even the most basic resources could be out of reach. Her con­nec­tion to the swamp deep­ened as she began to under­stand how every plant, every ani­mal, every move­ment in the envi­ron­ment was part of a larg­er cycle of sur­vival. With­out a father to teach her how to hunt or gath­er, Kya relied on her instincts, observ­ing the pat­terns of the marsh and learn­ing from them. The grits, still in their cro­ker sack, seemed to weigh her down, but they also served as a con­stant reminder of her depen­dence on her­self, not just for food but for emo­tion­al sur­vival as well.

Despite the harsh­ness of her real­i­ty, Kya did not give in to despair. Instead, she drew strength from the world around her, immers­ing her­self deep­er into the rhythms of the marsh. She learned to adapt, find­ing solace in the sim­ple, qui­et moments with nature. As the months passed and winter’s chill grew ever clos­er, Kya real­ized that sur­vival wasn’t just about food and shelter—it was about self-reliance and the strength to keep going despite the odds. The cro­ker sacks full of grits, which once sym­bol­ized the scarci­ty of her resources, became a tes­ta­ment to her abil­i­ty to hold on, a small but impor­tant part of the foun­da­tion she would build to sur­vive both the phys­i­cal chal­lenges of life and the emo­tion­al toll of aban­don­ment. The chap­ter cap­tures Kya’s trans­for­ma­tion, as she begins to learn that sur­vival means more than just stay­ing alive—it means find­ing pur­pose, strength, and hope even in the most iso­lat­ing cir­cum­stances.