Is it worth forty years to be free of slavery and reach a promised land? Some still think so. The band tightened around my heart with the picture of the little boy who realized his mother wasn’t coming with him at a border crossing. I’m not sure I could say with the mother, “Go on!” Tuesday was the morning the Vietnamese barber who is the age of my older son cut my hair. For twenty years, I’ve sat in his chair for him to tame my waves and control my cowlick. I have followed his two girls from first grade to in college now During early pandemic, he called to say he was in the grocery store and did I need anything, and he gave me a number in case I wanted an at home haircut. We have more than a once a month friendship.
Through the years, he has told bits of his life in two countries. I finally said, “Give me the details.” You know some of it with a country at war. His mother was left a widow with 10 children when her husband was killed. My friend was three then and the baby brother was seven months. They lived through economic and governmental challenges until he was 12. At that time the oldest sister was in Kansas because she had worked for an airline and an older brother served in the army. His mother managed to get six of tthe other cildren on a 40′ x 10′ boat with 76 people. His brother had a compass and navigated to get them to a refuge camp. Once a month, an American group would come and take 1,000 that met the criteria of their questions. They finally arrived in Kansas. Then the last two girls came. When they were all in America, they sent for their mother.
The family stories I heard were cheerful and amazing. So many activities happened together from weekly meals to golf trips for the men to taking in various cousins while they looked for a job in a new city. The mother made sure she sent money back each month to an orphanage in Vietnam. After she died, the children take up a collection each time they meet to keep her giving alive.
I went back to Louisiana for my 50th high school reunion. Only three of us had moved from Tangipahoa Parish. Yet there are multiple stories of those who have fled across countries and oceans to escape hunger and persecution while hopefully finding a place of safety. No, I don’t know the right answers and solutions. I’m not even sure I know the questions. I only know this expanded family has claimed their place in this country and my town and given a noble meaning to the word citizen. I have to keep caring for the aliens in this space I call my own.
“When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt.
Leviticus 19:34-35
Let Me Tell Ya 