Blindsided by the sand glass
The immigration detention facility where I worked is converting into a normal prison, so suddenly almost all the immigration detainees have been transferred. A whole year of being overburdened, then suddenly I find myself out of work right before my time is up, doing a tumblr post at 3pm in my bare office, the walls stripped of all my scarfs and frames. Like when the Grinch stole Christmas. The Grinch stole Christmas in July….?
I am going to really miss some guards and the way they would ask how I was then actually listen to my answers while escorting me around. They have children and empathy and souls. Give credit where credit is due. Giggle when everyone is trying to protect you from perceived dangers. “You’re the fairest one of all, Ms. Moroney, in all the definitions.” Wink. What? Winking can be so creepy or so sweet. Every week. Gates. Metal detectors. Wanded. Patted. ID’d. Treated like a lawyer. Treated like a girl. Shoulder pats and salutes. Signed out for good with an old Texan’s diabetic fingernails. He mysteriously asked me to not “put a bomb in his meatloaf” for the last time. No one will ever know what that meant.
Now these guards, they all go somewhere else and create home all over, like I will. We’re not that different than ants, our foundations expire or get kicked and we scurry to make something new. The client I got to help with a U-visa starting in October drove over four hours on Saturday to tell me goodbye and give me a Honduran bottle opener key chain… that he bought in Houston. I asked for Diet Coke and he brought me Dr. Pepper saying in Spanish, “Just for today, leave the diet.” He also put on my finger his ring with the Lord’s Prayer inscribed in tiny Spanish and we said half of it together spontaneously. “Perdona nuestras deudas como nosotros perdonamos nuestros deudores.” That’s all I ask with the end of this era in sight, that my debts this year might be forgiven as I forgive my debtors from this year. That it might be purified.
