Written on
1 April 2008
I met Maria one night as I was entering into the Migrant Resource Center for my evening shift. Sitting there on the bench inside the door, it was clear from Maria’s facial expression that she was in pain. With a very swollen ankle and a leg full of thorns, Maria had made the journey from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca to the US-Mexico border, alone. Having been robbed of everything she had brought with her, and tortured by the dangers of the desert, Maria was unable to walk and without a place to stay.
As Maria was picked up to be taken to the hospital, she held tightly to my arm, limping and jumping as best she could on the way. Each step toward the automobile became increasingly more painful for her, increasingly more slowly. Mid-journey, Maria’s remaining energy turned into tears, tears of pain, tears of desperation. “No puedo caminar,” Maria repeated, over and over. “No puedo.” I can’t walk. I can’t.
As I helped lift Maria into the truck, I stood there, not sure of what I could say or do at this point to make a difference for Maria. Before parting, she took my hand and held it for a moment, tears still flowing. After parting ways I walked back into the resource center, considering these tears that I’d seen pouring down Maria’s face. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d seen tears shed in this place; I recall a young child crying into the couch for his father from whom he’d been separated, a grown man sharing with tears in his eyes about his pregnant wife to whom he would be returning after leaving the resource center, and a young woman soaking many a Kleenex, fearful of being in a place she wasn’t familiar with, not knowing where she’d be going next.
I urge each of us to stop, take a step back from the various politics of this failed nation-state called the borderlands, and consider those who are risking their lives in attempt to reunite with their families and secure work in order to provide for their families. Consider Maria and her tears, and the many people who have shared her tears, traveling from place to place in search of the most basic of life’s needs. May God bless each one of these travelers, and allow you and me the strength to reach out a hand to those in their time of pain and need, considering each one as our brother and sister, created in the image of Christ, in love, in peace.
