This story begins with the previous post.
Chapter III
Over the weeks, M had been waiting for news about her father and brother. Finally, she heard that they had made it back to the border in an attempt to cross and begin the journey north through the US to be united with their family again. Crossing is always a dodgy process, all the more so if you have been recently ejected. They were caught. Dad was sent back a second time, but brother was taken into custody and sent north to a county prison in south-central Pennsylvania. I don't understand the process of sending someone who had recently been deported so far north into the country he was deported from, just to be incarcerated again, except that such policy benefits the private prison system - a steady stream of inmates means security for multi-million-dollar prison contracts.
So her brother is back in prison, where he started at the beginning of this debacle, only now her father is gone too.
Chapter IV
The other day we were playing basketball outside on a glorious Fall afternoon. One of my students ran up to me, saying that something was wrong with M. I ran over to where she was, on the far side of the court by some dumpsters. She was crying. She had just received a call from home; her brother had been released and he was at home. We all gathered around her, hugging her and patting her on the back. It was something achingly profound, happening right there on a middle-school playground. It was a microcosm of a world full of separation and pain that, in one instant, in one small life, finally saw a ray of sunshine breaking through, a drop of hope, of being reunited with that which had been lost.
I don't know why brother has been released; I don't know if his freedom is temporary or long term, if it bodes well or ill. For now, we can only hope, and enjoy the sunshine.
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