I still remember the single teardrop that caressed my cheek as I waved my last goodbye. I quickly wiped it away, hoping no one had caught sight of it. I kept telling everyone I wasn't scared, but now I don't recall if I was trying to convince them, or myself. My grandpa and grandma came up to me to give me one last hug before the woman took me away, it was then when I felt my entire body weight on my fragile legs as I collapsed on my knees to cling to their waist.
"Don't let them take me away," I said in between sobs. The single tear had turned into an open faucet of salty lament I could taste on my lips. My grandparents assured me I would be okay, and with promises of a better future I yet had the capability to comprehend, I crossed the U.S border illegally beside a woman I had never met, at only 8 years old.
Culture shock took over as the little brown girl who knew nothing but dirt roads and woke up slowly to the sound of roosters was now being awakened by the beeping of cars in busy city streets. She traded her town of fewer than 600 people for a place in which her new elementary school had a larger population.
But not by choice.
It wasn't up to her to adapt to a new tongue she never mastered. Though by sixth grade she was already in the middle school's gifted program and placing advanced in English, ironically, she'd still get ridiculed for the accent every time the words would come out of her mouth broken like crushed ice out of an ice dispenser. Between school bullying and an alcoholic father who would abuse her when her mother wasn't home, the girl thought she'd never know happiness like she did in her native land.
I still remember that girl, because I tried to kill her. I thought killing her would be the only way to get rid of all her sorrows. That summer after graduation, on July 4th, I watched the fireworks from the clear glass in a psych ward, wondering why suicide was another thing to add to the list of my failures.
Four years later, it was my abusive husband who would attempt to take my life. I thought about how ironic it was that I had attempted suicide to die at my own terms, yet there I was losing consciousness as his hands held a tight grip on my neck while my 3-year-old watched in terror from the couch. It's maybe better off this way, I thought as I slid in and out of consciousness. People will remember me as the undocumented woman who gave birth on a Wednesday but went back to school the next Monday on two separate occasions and managed to get get a college degree as she spent countless nights juggling homework, an infant and a toddler. There was a sense of serenity in the thought of being free of all the expectations that come with existing.
Once again, I survived. After being released from the hospital, the subtle light of dawn kissed my face as I stood outside my door, mentally preparing myself to walk in back to the house which was no longer a home. The broken furniture in the living room was a reminder of what had taken place just hours earlier. Emotionally overwhelmed, I fell on my knees and cupped my face in my hands, just as I had done earlier to protect my face from furious fists. I felt broken.
Suddenly, little footsteps echoed in the house as my toddler rushed to my side. He stood calmly as if aware of the hurt in his mother’s eyes. He wrapped his hands around my neck, and I realized that that moment was more powerful than anything else that had occurred the previous night. I had no time to be broken. I had to be strong; not only for myself but for my children.
Four years after that incident, I refuse to be another statistic. I am a resilient woman of color, a mother, a warrior. I did not survive myself and others for success to not be my only option.
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