Jessica’s Friend
Every time she laughs I laugh from my belly. I want to tell her story but I fear that in doing so I will exploit her experience, her struggle. Her story is so common and yet so unique and I learned it all very slowly as I tried to understand her broken English and she struggled to speak a language entirely different from that of her home. I won’t tell you her name or where she is from, in the event that one day you are given the privilege of meeting her. It is her story and when she tells it there is laughter and heartbreak.
She was sent as a bride to the United States with a dowry. She married the man her parents had chosen for her and had his children. He took everything from her. Many of the details of her life and the timeline are unclear to me, as it is difficult to understand much of what she shares. Having conversations that require one person to share from such a broken place is an unbelievable challenge.
She and her husband did quite well for themselves, owned businesses and had to beautiful babies. One day he came home with papers in English for her to sign, giving her the impression that they were in regards to the business and finances. She signed the papers, not knowing that she gave him everything. She signed over all her financial assets, her children, her life. She was divorced, unwillingly she was divorced from the life she had been sent by her family to build. She was kicked out of the family home, no green card, alone. She was left with nothing. He took her children and moved across the country. She has no proof of her identity.
I have known her for a just over a year and struggled with her as she tries to rebuild her life. The money, the lawyers, the immigration, the doctors, the paper work, in the hope that she can get back a small piece of what was taken. I listen as she shares her story with me. I help in whatever way I can but I mostly listen. She is less panicked as she gets slowly closer to her green card and her laugh is getting louder. Often times if you look in her eyes as she is laughing you can see tears and the hurt that she carries with her.
She yells my name like a mother would and gives me advice even when I don’t necessarily want it. She tells me every week that she is praying I have lots of babies. This would usually irritate me, but because it’s her I encourage it. I feel like is some way she gets a small, very miniscule part of the motherhood that was taken from her. Recently she found the phone number for her daughter and began calling her, now every Sunday she will take my cell phone and talk to her daughter. I don’t know what they talk about, I can’t understand a word of it, every time it happens I stand back and listen. I listen and feel overjoyed and sad all at the same time.
Her story is hers and to hear her tell it tightens the chest, burns the throat and rattles up the insides. I can’t do it justice, but I want it to be told. I want it to be told so that she is not invisible, so that the women that we walk by living outside or oppressed by poverty might be seen with a little more compassion. I want her story to be told because right now her story is the only thing he couldn’t take and in spite of it all she laughs and gives and I love her so much. 
me 07/24/10 2:01 AM |
i love you. if this is about whom o think it is, i am so glad she has you. i am so glad i have you.
DonnaV 08/2/10 12:39 PM |
Thanks for telling us a bit of “her” story… even though it made me cry!:) She is a beautiful lady, I can’t imagine being as brave as she has had to be. I am so thankful that she and others like her have HOMEpdx … I love you guys!
LeeAnn 08/31/10 7:28 PM |
so glad that you put together that she needs to be a mom to you. this could really annoy me if she were close to my age… and i might have missed recognizing her need. God is good to her through you, and to you through her. “the least of these”: all of us, are Jesus to each other. bless her! i tried not to cry unsuccessfully!
curious: how is it selfish to wonder what you could have done to help someone who died? (oops. prior post.) this struck me as a natural stage of grief: bargaining. maybe i’m missing your point, but would like to hear it!