Journal Therapy for Mary Catherine's 3rd Birthday

On February 9^th, three years ago, my third daughter Mary Catherine Socorro was born in a hospital surrounded by a couple feet of snow in Western Pennsylvania. This hospital is where my mother gave birth to me in 1970 and fell into a comma for ten days following. When I was twenty-three years old, I gave birth to my first born daughter Rachel in this hospital, then at twenty-six my son Thomas. Julian was born two and a half years later, and then Leah Rose a year after that. Eliott was born in San Diego seven years later and in two and a half years more came Mary Catherine. The women in the maternity ward recognized me, as we had shared these moments when souls connect in a dimly-lit room while a new person is welcomed into the world. The time span between my first and last daughters is seventeen years and the women in the maternity ward and I shared the wrinkles of life in our faces.

        

            Mary Catherine was conceived in Mexico in our home in the interior of the country in an urban area south of the capital. At that time we were living a life of trying to achieve residency in the country for myself and the kids, but to no avail. We had too many Americans in our family to be an economic dependent of my Mexican husband. However, we had several burners on in our planning and were opting to find a way to make everything work out. Hope has a way of blinding a person to the reality and that hope kept our drive and comfort that our pregnancy was justified, even with the negative comments. A two week visit to Pennsylvania while 9 weeks pregnant gave a second lawyer, an expensive, big named lawyer in the heart of Philadelphia 5 hours’ drive, an opportunity to ask someone directly knowledgeable in immigration law if the fact that I was sitting there pregnant made a difference in the outcome of obtaining a visa into America for my husband. The answer was no. The answer was the same as the previous high-profile lawyer that I visited in a downtown Pittsburgh high-rise a couple years prior.

            Some people say that I do not plan well. They do not consider all of the plans that I do juggle. Having to live in two countries without a way to make either life legal and the awareness of the children’s futures creeping up to an ugly head of reality can take a lot of planning regardless of the socially-correct aspect of it. I loved him so deeply, and carried within me the will of the youth of a sassy American, I just told myself inevitably I will be determined and I will find a way to make It all work. That is the hope that, like I mentioned, drove me to continue my wretched torture with a smile.

            The entire prenatal care and pregnancy was carried in Mexico – very modified in comparison to the extensive medical take-over of a woman’s body that American maternity doctors put into effect. The prenatal care that I did seek was from a doctor perceived as one of the better doctors in the city. It consisted of a series of monthly ultrasounds… no other tests. This was my sixth pregnancy at 40-years old, post cesarean. The reality of these conditions are something that may label me as negligent in American terms. I am aware of the attitude that I got when I walked into a hospital in labor and told them that I received my prenatal care in Mexico when I gave birth to my son in San Deigo on the border. They called child-protection on me for it. I was well aware of the perceived indications that I was somehow not okay to want to spend my sensitive emotional pregnancy with my husband in Mexico, as we were not given an option to be in America. I am not attempting to diffuse the responsibility in that statement, but that is something that I mention as to show the weight on my mind at that time in my life.

            There was a Sunday morning that came along that when I was in my seventh month of pregnancy that we went to Catholic Mass at one of the several churches that we visited ritually and faithfully every Sunday. This particular church was built centuries prior and was crumbled in much of the rock’s exterior with faded paint and birds living within the deterioration. The garden surrounding gave the sense of a magical mystical enchanted purity in this historical building that many considered only to be their weekly revival. I felt at peace there. We were accompanied by my sister-in-law, her influential husband, and their three sons. Their family was well-known in all class statuses of people in our area, so we made somewhat of an entrance everywhere we would go between their notoriety and our Americanism… so people were generally respectful to us with an air of eagerness to please. An old woman all wrapped in shawls with a wrinkly face, tough hands, and less than four foot ten came up to me out of the crowd and held her hands on my stomach and chanted some words with sincerity in her stare into my eyes… and walked away. Her blessing, her message, was that my baby was okay. The worry of my societal obligations was gently handed to God at that moment.

            

          The plan at this point was for me to fly to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving. Mary Catherine was due on January 21^st and no one wanted me to wait longer than that like I did with her brother a couple years prior – as I flew up to the border at the pregnancy’s due date to renew my tourist visa that was to expire the day after the due date and I could not get an extension. Actually I say my visa was due to expire, but that also included Julian and Leah who were with me as small children. Thanksgiving time, and the scheduled departure, came closer and my belly grew real big with Catherine’s pregnancy. I looked full-term at only 6-months gestation. I had trouble accepting that I had to leave. Our tourist visas were due to expire in December which left us no other legal option so that we had to leave the country. We contemplated riding a bus to the border, or driving our van, to renew my visa and then return to give birth in Mexico. Again it was not just my own visa that needed renewal but Julian and Leah, as well as little Eliott who was at that time a couple years old. My father made it clear with his insisting that we fly to Pennsylvania to give birth and my husband sided with him for the safety of me and the baby. It was settled.

            The day came for me to be at the airport and I became physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to function. I could not pack the clothes that would be necessary for Julian, Leah, and Eliott, and myself in the suitcases. I could not think straight. I was dragging my feet so much that we were so late to get to the bus-station that took us on the two hour drive to the city’s international airport. We were involved in a minor traffic-accident on the way due to the hurried, frantic mode of travel that we were in. I sat in the passenger seat crying and began to hyperventilate at the thought of having to leave my husband, my home at heart, my comfort. We missed the last bus that would have arrived in the city before the scheduled airline flight. The flight was cancelled.

            My father was angry and my older two kids that were living in Pennsylvania with their father, my first husband, were planning on meeting us that day at the airport, were terribly sad. It was the day before Thanksgiving, but we rescheduled for Christmas Eve. I needed more time to process the tear that I experienced in having to break away from my husband and my home that we built together. Guilt surrounded my every thought in not being able to please and provide contentment and consistency to all those who I loved so dearly and it tore me in half.

            Christmas Eve came and by the time I was focused on staying calm. I had an entire month to stabilize my emotions. I was now in my ninth month of pregnancy and absolutely huge. I accepted what had to be accomplished and separated that plan from my emotions, as one would do when the responsibility overrides the desire. We placed emotional blocks on the building Christmas spirit that was in every aspect of our lives at that time, with friends’ invitations to holiday parties that we turned down and decorating that was not a part of the season for us as a family. We told ourselves that it was just another day that year… there would be next year.

          

          The next year never came incidentally as we spent the following two years in immigration law limbo purgatory while getting that visa secured, and yes my sassy American attitude did make it work after being subjected to the torture of being a family that was considered to not be important enough by my country to give relief to, or protective outreach at best. Yes, I made it happen, without their help, at the price of my emotional stability and possible future mental trauma for my entire family. Does it sound exaggerated or dramatic... Maybe… I am accustomed to expecting less it seems in order to deal. If my words carry an exaggeration that is nothing more than a typical situation of a woman who cannot accept proper societal role, than my deepest apologies for writing it out for it to reach another’s eyes.

            I sought medical preparations for my daughter’s birth. I assumed that the birth may have to take place in my father’s home due to there not being insurance established. My son was born on the border and because I was not a resident of California, I was personally billed for the entire amount, ruining my already ruined credit. His birth also included the cost for his newborn first days for a week in intensive care. This fact caused me to aim for a home birth to alleviate any more debt than I already had. The local association of mid-wives could not handle my pregnancy through because I was already at 38-weeks and that was an unacceptable part of their procedures, especially that I was considered high-risk at 40-years, with prior cesarean birth.

            I went to the hospital to ask if they could be so kind as to help me receive the necessary preparation of prescribing to me the prescription that eliminates the possible bacterial meningitis contracted in a natural birth, because my intentions were to just do it alone at the house. The hospital then connected me with a program to aide in pregnant mothers living in poverty. At that time I was put into their system and the multiple testing and ultra-sounds were conducted. I was continually informed that there were complications, that the baby was very large and I had too much amniotic fluid, along with the previous cesarean and my age and the abated prenatal care… they pleaded with me to get an immediate cesarean. I was sent to a prestigious woman’s hospital in the nearby city of Pittsburgh and was told by everyone that I needed to deliver right away.

            I wished to be out of that society and back in Mexico with my husband so much. I lived with sadness in my heart. Back at my father’s house were my children that were pulled out of school to make this trip. They missed three months of school. We kept up with their studies with their cuadernos and libros that they brought. We had contacts on the phone with friends in the school to coordinate what lecciones were covered. The cyber-school here in Pennsylvania was arranged the first of our arrival, but by the time that they got it together, it was time for us to go back to Mexico.

            I remembered the old woman in the church with her message that my baby was okay. It was enough for me. I told the doctors that I was in control of my body and I would not be prey to their influences. I assured them that I knew my baby was okay and would be delivering her when she was ready to come.

            She finally decided to come at two weeks post-partum at 42-weeks gestation on February 9^th.

            She was ten pounds of God’s blessing.

          

           I was able to be with my family, all of my children were with me. My oldest two children lived beside the hospital and walked through the two-feet of snow to come visit us while we lay in the hospital after her birth. My first born daughter Rachel is the Godmother of my youngest daughter Mary Catherine. We conducted the ceremony at St. Paul’s Catholic Church a week before we went back to Mexico when Catherine was six-weeks old to meet her father.

            

            When we arrived in Mexico, my appendix ruptured a couple days later… but that is another story.

            Mary Catherine is three today. She was born in the 95-percentile for her sie and is now in the lower half of percentile for her age, varying between five and thirty percentile. She is a tiny little girl, but chubby. She has above average intelligence and I know this in comparison with her gifted sister’s same attributes at her age. She has big blue eyes and strawberry, wispy hair… and she has been on ten international flights during her lifetime… plus three international flights while in my belly…

            She is a blessing to the world.

Home

Where is your home?

Proof in existence is asking yourself where you home is...

A home is important and establishes a safe place.

It can be the focus of a woman in labor as she stares
at that concentration point on the wall...

pushing her child into the world..

while her mind is focused on her home
for clarity of her existence....

It can be a man that is ready to endeavor

on major surgery to save his health

as he is wheeled on the stretcher,

he focuses on his home
for confidence that he has a
reason to live.

Marriages blossom within a home, forming families...
and routines...

... even broken marriages hang on to each other

 for the love of their home that they share...

Children find their base in life in their home...

visiting their parents when they become adults,

at their childhood home at Christmas-time.

A home can be pretty important, no matter what is considered to be a home... 

even if their only home be within the arms of their beloved.

A home is where you desire to be,

where you find comfort.

Presently, there are thousands of families that have been displaced...

from their homes...

from their loved ones...

from their lives...

And it is all on the USA Government's shoulders

in their meetings

dressed in suits

talking statistics

They say,

get in this imaginary line

with this imaginary solution...

to get your home back,

if you will.

You my dear government officials with all of your disassociation from the real guilt in the matter,

are going to have to do better than that.

We are organizing

We are going to convince the American public

eventually

and we will...

There is no "you" in America,

but there is an "U.S" in America.

We the People, matter.

Family unity.

Edu

      We had two different school experiences in Mexico. 

First one was at a private school that last a few months, called Moderno Americano run by a woman named Miss Lupita from Tijuana/San Diego area… 

       ...the second, which was basically their elementary education was the public school. The school's name was Otilio E. Montana. It was within the condominium complex that we lived in, but it was at the top of the hill/small mountain. As far as a school system bus transportation – non-existent. So everyone will walk up the hill together or get a ride from one of the plentiful taxis or if, like my one friend who lived in the next town over, jump on the route (bus) that was stationed at the bottom of the hill on the corner, then walk up the hill. It was approximately a mile walk for us. School started at 8am and ended at 1pm in the mid-day heat. I believe that most of the education system in Mexico is fairly similar to this type of scenario. I went through two pregnancies so there were times when I gave the kids a few pesos, actually it was 3 pesos each, for the bici-taxi, exactly what it sounds like, a cart pulled by a bike, so that I could stay home and not do the walk. The neighborhood generally looked out for children and most knew who my kids were, so we were okay with them being out alone to a point (safety has changed since those times as of recent there have been an increase in kidnappings with money demands due to the rise in poverty in our area, might be worse now that Nieto is president). We had a mini-van that I originally drove into Mexico from Florida. I was 3 months pregnant at the time. It took 4 days. Our van was broke down pretty often mostly due to the flooding, but once it was my fault because I tried to "gun-it" through the high water that was collected under the overpass from the run-off of the watered crops nearby. It was late, I had just dropped off clothes to my husband at his sister’s store that he slept on the floor some nights because he worked across the street at 4 am and it was easier that way. So I got the van stalled in the middle of the overpass in 3 feet of water... needless to say, I never heard the end of that big attempt at being super mom because our van was broke down for gosh like a year. I did not see much of Ricardo ever that first year because of his job was more like an ownership of his life… he worked from 4am till 10pm every day but Sunday. So I was basically on my own with the kids. The kids and I did not know 10 words of Spanish between the three of us. I tried my best to teach them with pictures that I would draw and look up in the translating dictionary and write the English and Spanish version of what the picture that I drew was and taped these pictures everywhere for them. I enrolled them in a private school when it came time for the school year to begin. In the months before-hand they learned a lot of Spanish from the kids (friends outside and their cousins). They all played out in the parking lot every night. I stayed in the house mostly because I was getting bigger by the day with my 5th pregnancy. I had two kids in the States that were to a previous marriage. So… lots of emotions to challenge us all. But we did okay. We figured out how to purchase food to eat and we ate a lot of tortillas with cheese and spaghetti because we were not only unable to converse, but we were also unable to cook Mexican cuisine.  
      We were very poor in the beginning and we did not have furniture. There was a refrigerator that the people before us left behind because it was broken and we had it turned on its side to utilize as the only thing in the room to put the TV on that Ricardo had stored in his sister's house while he was in the USA. But we could not afford beds for over a year. When the kids were enrolled in the private school, it cost a lot of money. People assumed that we had money because we were American. We generally had to be really careful about who charged what for what. I can say this because we were there long enough that we became part of the community, thoroughly assimilated, so I can compare how it was at the beginning as opposed to later as we lived like typical Mexicans. My father agreed to send the money for the private school because we were in a difficult position with securing their education in a land that we were not yet bilingual. The money went from him to us and right out of our hands into the hands of the “directora” of the school. It was difficult to live under those conditions when the amount of money that we paid for their school could have changed our quality of life at that time. I washed our clothes in a sink with a scrub brush for nearly 3 years and eventually we were able to buy a washing machine. We withdrew them from the school in November of that school year and my dad did not send the money anymore which is what the in-laws were assuming, but only right I could not scam my own father even if we were that poor. I flew up to San Diego a day before my due date, gave birth while staying at my sisters, and flew back as soon as they released my new son. He had to stay a week in ICU because of a bacteria level. So we returned, we enrolled the kids in public school - the Otilio Montana school in our neighborhood which was nice because with the private school I had to drive them across town and the directora was always trying to get me to "be seen" with her since I was American it was good for her business because her school was supposed to be bilingual (but it was not really that bilingual, but who would know that really, but I could tell because I speak English you know?). But you know when you are pregnant and in a strange environment ugh... so fragile. I read to the preschool kids there though... The rest of the years we spent there the kids went to the public and when the school wanted money for things like toilet paper we just told them we were broke. They had to have uniforms. I remember the director of the public school, he spoke a little English, he was going over all the different things with me, and he said, "are you going to make (sew) their uniforms?" as if it were assumed that I would agree... I probably laughed out loud but don’t recall. We had a neighbor make them. That principal left the school a month after we enrolled. The rest of the time there we never had an opportunity to be able to communicate from parent to teacher except with either my son's translation or my choppy attempts. It got better as time went on and the more soap operas that I watched I started to learn Spanish. Once the school gave Exams for a check on progress, my daughter was not as quick to pick up the Spanish language during the initial year as my son was - he is a year older than she is... her progress-exam was into its third day... the teachers called my son in to the room and had him finish it up for her. If that gives you any indication of the level of concern as our USA- NCLB type of laws are... there is basically nothing to compare to. My children were a B average throughout their years in elementary in Mexico. They are now both fully bilingual. Upon our return to the States, we had many cultural hurdles. Of course they still knew how to speak English as I only ever used English, but no one else on a daily basis. I brought with us a collection of about 300 children's books and workbooks from the States with so they had books. They knew how to read. 

       We made it back in the middle of the school year in their “fifth and sixth” grades. I asked the principal of Meridian school here in PA if he could put them into the “fourth and fifth” grades instead. I remember back when I was their age and I what I learned in school at that age and they were not close to what they should know. I was extremely aware of their faulting areas especially in comparison to how I could remember my days in that same Meridian school.... they basically were behind or completely faulting of history, English, reading, spelling.... science and math were even different. The principal said no, that it would damage their confidence, which was sort of dumb. You know when you know what needs to be done but no one will listen to you? That was one of those moments. I had many battles with things and the school. The kids did not receive extra help but it was sort of blamed on me for taking them out of the country and they made a point to make me feel like I should be dedicating the time in teaching them at home because they had their own full classrooms. Of course during those times I have the babies and I was working and the whole mental thing with the immigration battle and FB and oh so many excuses but all of them made it genuinely difficult for me to give my kids any type of additive... especially when I did not really know what or how to do it. 

        That was some of the incentive for going to school for teaching because I am angry about that whole thing... but also because it seems to be the best occupation to influence so that we have less of a mass of people without empathy walking around in the States. Plus it is a good position to change the world... And, I realized that if anyone was going to take what I have to say seriously, I had to step it up a notch and get a degree in something…anyway, so now they are both in the JR high. My daughter cries because she is really smart, but she is in a reading class that is her present reading level, and she said she is the only typical child that the entire class is challenged...  How do I respond to that type of thing? You see... I have a lot of anger at myself, especially in comparison of the “what is and what could be”… Then I find out that there are laws that protect the child from falling behind. Like IEPs and free tutoring that was never discussed past the blame game… I start to get super angry because all of this time I am beating myself up about it. I keep pulling my college teacher aside after class to ask her about something that I am wrestling with or reflecting upon... she is the professor of education for my class that I am learning all of the history and laws regarding education in America... she knows like everything... I am sure she has noticed the tears in my eyes on several occasions during class...Everything that I have learned in the past two years of college has been absorbed through this "how can this apply to immigration" type of filter in my mind... every expression in class has a underlying tone of the needs to create diversity appreciation or directly to my experiences.

       There is nothing in legislation that pertains to children that are in another country like my kids were, like many kids are about to do or the multitudes that are already gone of course because we just deported over a million people, so yea of course this is a totally new playing field. But if you go back in history, every single little step in education ends up effecting how the country is run; it is quite obvious in the connection. I guarantee that there is a way to press for recognition to this amazingly unique and new area. No child left behind is a LAW and these children are American with guaranteed ties to that law. By 2013-14 all students are to be proficient or better in reading and math. When we returned, my son was reading at a 3^rd grade level in 6^th grade. His teacher called me towards the beginning of our transition. She said, “he knows English right?” I said of course he does, I talk to him every day… She said that when she is talking/lecturing the class/ teaching… she can tell by his eyes that he is just not getting it. She said that she will approach him and say Julian do you understand what I said? And she said he was always so confused. I said well, maybe he is not used to hearing someone else speaking English and maybe there are a lot of words that we do not generally use at home that he has to use a little more concentration on. He got E’s and D’s that first year that we came back… he is now getting A’s and B’s only because of his own determination. Like I said we have not received any special attention or supplements.

Let me stress, that the No Child Left Behind LAW was brought into America by Bush during his first term and does not mention if the parents are of particular “worth” that the child will be considered in their no child left behind… This law pertains to EVERY American child, without exclusion in the discrimination of the parent’s living situation or class status or ability to provide… it is a law that is completely focused on the child’s inclusion.

      My kids have worked so hard for every amount of catching up that they have had to accomplish in both countries.

       I have highest of hopes that we can make some kind of difference. I know that my situation is not experienced in the exact same way as every family that goes off to live. Many of these families now have access to the internet with our FB groups and whatnot, that was not part of the scene before with us, but right now it is so these ladies have an advantage with that resource. Also there are some ladies that are educated before they go so they are aware of their child’s needs, many of them teachers of English in the foreign school systems…

      I would love to initiate a Charter School in DC that is Federal instead of State, which includes the American children living abroad. This guarantees a free and appropriate public education to EVERY American child. It can be funded through a non-profit organization.

In this there lies a law that is not being taken responsibility for…

     Not just a claim to our pain, but an actual law.

      Can there be a scientific approach to this? Yes. In a scientific approach, there can be a control and an experiment. Compare what happens to a child who lives in another country and comes back to a child that is able to go school in his own country….or compare a child that goes through the public education in another country to a child that is with the ability to be supplied with an American education even if living abroad (military-base children). Proof of a law being thrown to the wayside during their deportations and exclusions that what answer is there for this?

      Suddenly I see a loophole for family unity.

And people will probably call me nuts... its okay I'm getting used to it.

sold

Plans.

My husband laughs at my “plans, plans, everything is plans”...

He tells me to just live my life – that life is not about a plan.

Really?

Maybe that is why I feel so twisted and angry at my lack of control or frustration at the attempt to control everything in a nicely packaged squared off fashion.

That notch in the shelf… the one that bothers me every time I look at it. It is a notch that is there naturally by way of a knot in the wood that broke out leaving a cut out in the straight edge of the board. Naturally there or not I do not appreciate it breaking up the straight-lined edge of the shelf where I stack my cups and plates in my kitchen. It bothers me. It bothers me because if the board was cut to nestle in that corner shelf with that notch “planned” for the wall side instead of the side I had to look at, I would not be bothered by it.

That is a control issue. That is what I am talking about. I do not like to see that things “could be” one way, if only there would have been a plan. So I plan endlessly…

The entire immigration mess is all about absolute loss of control.

Nearly impossible to have a concrete plan… or rather “one” solid plan without thinking through the 99 back-up plans that need to possibly jump in to rescue us all from the one plan that we were following.

It is a hard way to live.

When you wake up each day with somewhat of a direction it clears up energy for just living and enjoying. That is normalcy really. Having something of a handle on what is going on in your circle. Of course total control is impossible. Life makes its own mind up as to what it will do with you.

Presently my emotions are somewhat teetering between appreciation and happiness for the possibilities that could happen to my family and the extreme fear of that opportunity being so close to being swiped away and we get sucked back into the time vortex of immigration separation life.

It is a serious life issue too. It is not about a table cloth sale or we could go even bigger with the sale of a car – heck let’s make it the sale of a house.

This is huge… it involves lives and time.

My life and my time. My family, my children, my husband…

That is more important to me than anything.

We have a lot riding on Ricardo’s interview.

If he gets his visa, we start our life.

If he does not, we continue to die inside while we play this idiots game of who gives a shit about the illegals.

Someone said in a discussion this morning that people need to “own up” for what they have done – that no one held a gun to your head…

Really?

We sold our van to pay for his appointment. It was the only option.

We sold it to family so they paid for it before the appointment so that we could have the money for the appointment, but because I am in Mexico now without my husband, they delayed “collection” of my van until he returns.

Over the years that we have had our condo, I have brought many suitcases of things down from the USA. There were some things that are not something that I want to part with, but yet cannot take up to the States at this time, so we took a trip to his mom’s house to store them. This would include 2 oversized suitcases of 3-400 count English children’s books, my grandmother’s Singer sewing machine with multiple attachments, and a few other things. I already have a dozen suitcases going up to Pennsylvania full. Most of our things we are giving away to family and friends and neighbors.

We were gone for 4 days to his mom’s house to take these things there and when we returned, Ricardo was let go from his employment of 4 years. They did so because the boss’s son in law needed work and were too chicken to tell Ricardo to his face, so we got a text message while we were out of state.

He threatened a lawyer and they paid him off $4000 pesos… He could have got much more, (like 15,000) but we needed the money now (for food and bills) not later in the amount of time a true pursuit of the claim would take.

So when he comes back from the appointment we need to have closure on this part of our lives because our life here has caved in financially as our concentration has been put on the future with our visa attempt.

If he is denied, the only way we will keep our home from foreclosure here with him living in it, is if he can find another job, or I pay via bank transfer from the USA, which in itself is heartbreaking to imagine more time without him in our lives…

The kids and I fly back on the 19^th, his birthday weekend.

My college classes start 8am on the 20^th – full day ending in a 3 hour biology lab afternoon… starting with a speech class – hopefully without a first day in front of the class introduction… really.

That is after the flight lands at midnight and getting home and in bed at lucky 3 am…

With or without my husband by my side….

But that sleepy emotional consequence was a sacrifice for waiting till after his birthday to fly back.

After missing three of my six kids’ birthdays this year alone…

It is SHIT like that that I am so worn from… just years of no plan- just living without any stability, flying all over the place with these kids…

All of our hearts breaking all of the time…

Having to leave some children in the states and having to leave him by himself…

Just all of it.

I don’t want to live without a solid plan anymore.

Life stuck in the immigration web does not offer an opportunity for plans.

Just survival.

He better get his visa.

Responsibility-ability

     I drove here from Tampa area in my mini-van with 2 small kids and pregnant... it took 3 days to get to the border with 2 hotel stops so we could sleep. It was nice because we cut down into New Orleans which I was there years prior, “for lunch in the French Quarter”, but to see that the devastation from Katrina was still evident in the missing windows and such. I met Ricardo at Matamoros, Mexico, a border city along the Gulf. After 3 days of driving pregnant, my exhausted emotions were out of control and the confusion in the street of the culture slap across my face, with my eyes flipping through the faces and none of them being Ricardo’s, broke me.

     Directly passed the border entry, a middle aged heavy woman went walking by in the heavily populated street with a pole across her shoulders, selling the upside-down whole chickens that were tied to it, and it was strange to me,  dramatic, like time travel. A scruffy man walked up to my van at the stop sign and sprayed water out of a plastic pop bottle to squeegee clean my windshield. My concentration was on Ricardo’s frustrated Spanish on the cell because we could not find each other. I rolled up the window real fast and the man started flipping out, waving his arms around for money, so I shot two quarters out a little crack at the top and sped off…. That is when I made the U-Turn and headed back to the border parking lot in somewhat of a panicked shock.

     I felt pretty good about myself before that. The effort that was put into getting there took a considerable amount of determination, all while raising the children, maintaining my health and job… Our passports were in hand, all expedited, everything I owned was sold off in the front yard, I left my great job on good terms and the kids finished their school-year – all of which I did while missing Ricardo and anticipating what living in Mexico would entail with our nightly phone calls via the press 100 different numbers first calling card. The drive alone to get to the border started with peeling away from my parents that stood in my rented home’s driveway crying that it was the last time they would see us alive… To be so brave as to go driving off to the land of the no return with nothing but an adventuresome soul… yep… I was feeling pretty damn confident at that point.

I guess that I pictured just a continuation of the highway that took us through Texas…

       Mexico is not just separated from the Estados Unidos by a line on a geography map, or a place for exotic beach vacations, or don’t drink the water jokes, or men with huge sombreros sleeping under a cactus with his pet donkey parked close by…

Mexico is a personality.

       I say that with discomfort as not to judge this part of me that is foreign to my childhood, but is my children’s short lived knowledge of the world and life.

       My beloved Mexico with your deep sense of survival and ability to simply look at a person and realize if that person deserves that extra coin, or guiltless denial, according to the standards of simplicity of life. Coming in from the giant presumed money tree USA, I am permanently tattooed as I am not only here by marriage as opposed to blood, which holds weight, but my heritage awards me a status of responsibility to give, whether I have it or not in realistic terms.

       Because I grew up with HBO and Jordache Jeans, rode in cars with boys without a care in the world and finished my free high school education with every hope of making my life as big as I dreamed… because I was ignorant to the fact that my life was economically coveted by most of the world… it suddenly did not matter that we were only able to afford beans for meals… simply because... Who I was and what experience in my life surmounted at the same knowledge level as those who surrounded our town, family, and friends that were of economic upper class – that alone made our financial issues MY problem and so was my responsibility to help others if we wanted to make it work here.

        Sure… I could have secluded our little poor family. I could have smiled nice at the neighbors and kept to myself with polite giggles and waves and shifted around at the local tienda with my broken Spanish. I could have had an island inside my mind with my family living in paradise in the land that I claimed as my own with virtually no problems only because that is how protected we chose to live…

But I did not do that.

        This is how it is – the land of survival… the people here seem to realize your intentions in a way that revolves around their own survival. I cannot fool myself into thinking that I will bring my American heritage here and make dreams for my children to soar above it all. That way of thinking is taught in the dubbed American sitcoms and frankly why so many choose to venture to American soil through days of desert commuting. It is simple really.

         If we are to live in Mexico in our lifetime as a couple, as a family, in any event, will have to involve my American heritage.  It is not because I am spoiled in need for myself, or that I want my children to be spoiled, but it is because I am spoiled within the society that I claim to want to be a part of. It is a responsibility.

        One day when I grow up I want to scrape enough money together to buy a cart to push up and down the street and sell seafood on ice, or fancy bread under a table cloth, or pillows that I sewed together…

What words are there to explain how that is not for me or the children that I will raise?

It is not about self-glory or conceit, imperialism of my country or poking fun at another. It is not for me. It is a responsibility.

Then again, it is on me.

        And THAT is not something that can be passed off with a polite smile. This is who we are in our separate family kingdom’s hierarchy placement and in this country that holds importance. There will be no settling for less than struggling strives “just because” we want to choose to settle for content, relaxing, happiness instead. There will be no American attitude of “money is not important, love is” because that is not the reality here. It is not about love in that sense of individuality as a part of the Mexican society. It is a responsibility that is placed to do more than to simply keep our heads above water… it is to swim hard.

   
 ... and enjoy while doing so.

tears for separation fears

 A man died this month in the Arizona desert on the way to his American family of five children and wife.

 Her husband will never have words from his mouth - no more laughter, no more memories, no more tasting food, or holding hands.

No more looking up at the sky out a window from his bed in the morning as he rolls over to ponder the day before it happens.

It is over.

His time is completely finished. Only his five children and wife will remember him now. His American family with five American children that depended on his financial contribution and care, his fatherly hand in love and correction, his arms, kisses, and presence will be forever without him.

The failure to initiate comprehensive immigration reform in the United States kills family members.

It kills them physically, as in this extreme story of a father trying to return to his needy children and wife.

It kills family members daily, little by little -

                                                                when there are papers to file

                                                                                                          that can take years to accomplish

                                      and only to hope

                                                              that after all of it

                               the end result

       is an approval.

…and for some families, the only offering is a lifetime ban with no other option.

    There are children without fathers that quietly talk to their sister about how they miss their papa, while the mother over-hears the conversation and dies inside... a four year old boy’s observation of his emotions to his two year old sister of why his father has been only randomly visited since the end of 2010.

Tonight on the phone, my husband cried.

I knew he was crying.

I could hear him.

I tried to be extra happy and we put the speaker phone on and I tried desperately to amuse the two little ones so that they would entertain his happy side to try to snap him out of what was eating him up.

Finally it got to be too much for him.

I could tell there was a difficulty in maintaining his composure, as my macho man.

This is not something that happens to him, ever.

We are all breaking down inside.

He had to hang up, crying…

I said the things we always say every day...  

                                         “Okay, Good-night”

                                            “Good-night...See you tomorrow”            

                                         “See you tomorrow… I love you”

                                             “I love you... Be careful baby.”

Why do so many die in the desert?

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/exclusive-vista-father-of-five-dies-in-arizona-desert-after/article_46185bd0-3c04-5d81-b24d-7f6c99d21eed.html

http://immigrate2us.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-93541.html?s=67aa298397d440fd55f97d40101c114f

hitting bottom - a stage of the immigration process

Alcoholics loose their driver’s license and sometimes family members…

Addictions to drugs and gambling require tough love and a cold shoulder...

Criminals internally cry for punishment by leaving clues to be relieved of their secret...

I am married to a Mexican guy who I love with all of my heart.

     This year started out with the babies and I in Mexico with my husband for a “visit”- as some have wrongly stated a honeymoon-type of visit, as if some assumed virgin moment of enlightenment takes place. I returned to my home, everything unchanged, unmoved, but relatively clean as my husband takes care of himself and our home when the kids and I are away. We do not pretend that life is perfect when we are together, or do we over-treat ourselves as would be presumed.

     There is only a short period of time that we are able to be family, so we fight, we love, we cook and do laundry, and we find that some of our best conversations are when we are sitting in the bathroom together. We are just like a normal marriage, a normal family. That is until it ends, the flight date approaches, and that is when normalcy goes and pain overwhelms not just us, but our children. We do not discuss this moment until the day it arrives, we do not linger in the sadness, and we just live.

    Then, the big girl pants are put on, so that I can get through life until next time while I am without him.

This is when my husband takes a deep breath and holds it, as he waves goodbye to his life on the other side of the security check, heading back to America – where he is not welcome.

      The past five months my world has been more hellacious than ever. Concentration on living has become difficult. I lost our baby and I lost some of my closest friends. I started to doubt my abilities in my education and found it a real challenge to push myself through my assignments.

    In the past, words of encouragement to women in this similar situation was an opportunity for me to feel as though that all that I had lived and learned had counted for something, that I could help others who were moving abroad as I did previously without being afraid or lonely, or to comfort those who were enduring separation that could be so traumatic…

    Suddenly it was I who turned to the internet crying out for someone to help me as I fell further and deeper into depression. I drove people away with my sudden loss of humor and strength. I was lost and I lost so much because of it.

Hitting bottom… what happens to a person that hits bottom?

There is a feeling that your life is not really yours.

When there is a lack of control over almost every aspect of your life, you begin to search for a way out.

Do I attend an AA meeting, an NA meeting, or do I walk in to the jailhouse and say please, take me, I did it, I am guilty? Do I run from my friends, from my family, from my school, and from society?

Who and what do I look to that will bring solution to this life, this annoying person that my friends hate, that my family does not respect, that my children pity, that my church ignores, and that society cannot stand…

No one wants you when you loose – there surely is a song somewhere for this moment.

And then there is my husband on the other end of the nightly call, where we get to love, respect, and comfort each other because we are both enduring the same hell.

This is the bottom.