Where in the media are all the scenes and stories of separated immigrant families reuniting? Where are the videos of children running joyfully into the arms of their parents? On TV and Facebook, I need to see tears of joy, arms reaching and clutching, border-crossing mothers ecstatically hugging sons and daughters.
We need more time, the government says. More time. As a bereaved mother, I know that more time without one’s child is tormenting. Time is not a friend when it accumulates mercilessly between the last time you held your loved one and the present, looming dimly into the future. I know how it is to yearn to be with your beloved child. I’ve lived with longing, spent days aimlessly wandering in despair, and cried myself to sleep too many nights over the loss of my child.
A child is lost if you don’t know where they are, or whether or not they’re safe. If you cannot be with your children to hold and comfort them, they are lost to you. If DNA tests are needed for your reunification, a child is surely lost.
The aching for a child who has been taken away is different but not unlike that of bereaved parents. For people who have had a child die, their worst nightmare has already taken place. They are not in the middle of agonized waiting, wondering if and when they might be reunited in their lifetime. Hope is different. And bereaved parents don’t have to consider the aftermath, the psychological effects of separation on children who died. But these immigrant parents, whose children were torn from them as they tried to secure better lives, are now facing a slew of their worst worries. Will their family survive? Intact? How and where? On top of an undocumented family’s uncertain future, there is added anguish in fears their child may be scared, hurt, confused and lonely. And knowing one’s child is also suffering the pains of separation, only adds to the grief.
There can be no beginning of relief or peace for these families until these children are returned. This has to be one of the cruelest forms of torture. I cannot relax until they are all reunited. And the media is gushing with videos of joyous reunions.
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I also long to cry while watching videos of reunited families. But the separation process was so cruelly done that no one kept track of names and family relations. it is horrific. Let us hope for a rapid correction of this travesty. Thanks for putting it so very well.
Yikes, there’s been so much going on with The Trump White House and more shootings that I lost track of news about the children and their parents. Plus I worked a whole week, full time, and didn’t have the energy to turn on TV. Better find out how my lost children are faring.
You have stated the case powerfully, Robin. I’m with you.
Cheers, Lynne.