Refugees

20 thousand dollars that amount could be a year's meal, a life-changing surgery, the down payment for an apartment, on second thought, is not such a large amount, it certainly doesn't pay even closely for the pain those bastards caused my father, but it's still more than enough to change my life... I remember when I get to Canada, it's cold, snow is a beautiful thing but when it touches your bare skin for the first time you feel like dying, nothing to do with the Caribbean sun, although if I think about it right, the heat and cold burn almost the same, as if they were the same, like the times when hunger feels so deep and painful in the stomach that it is not possible to eat anything, or when the tiredness of a double shift at work is such that all the body wants to do is jump, dance and laugh. I wonder if those who destroyed my land loved it so deeply that this feeling could do nothing but be confused with anger and hatred.

My father laughed uncontrollably as our grandparents' farm burned and the blood of our animals bathed the floor. I suppose that, for him, the pain of seeing everything he had worked for in his life being reduced to ashes was so strong that a deep, long, agonizing laugh was the only way his body could express the fear and desolation he was feeling. For me it was also painful, in that little house lost in the middle of the mountains I learned to walk, read and ride a horse, under the avocado tree that grew near the road I kissed Maria for the first time, under the shelter of its leaves, guarded by the moon and with the fireflies as our witnesses we vow to love each other forever. But the only thing hanging from the branches of the tree that day was the lifeless body of Don Abelardo my dad's assistant, a man who used to knock on my door every morning without fail, brought me coffee and rushed me to go to school " Do not miss school, go and learn, don´t stay like me, not knowing how to read " hung from his neck a letter "this land now belongs to the black eagles, you have 24 hours to get out of the town"

We didn't even have time to say goodbye, before I could process everything that had happened I was already on a plane bound for Canada, to that distant country where my dad's drunk friends said in surprise that the daughter of a neighbor's sister in law became a millionaire overnight, where each person can get everything ones would want in no time, where everyone is so friendly and beavers and bears get into your house if you don't jam the door, the country of dreams and myths, where the north pole is, where bigfoot lives, where people bathe in ice and unaware tourists lost their fingers due to the frostbites, that country, the one with the red leaf in the flag, a country where, although we never got to receive hot pancakes from the hand of a lumberjack, we were welcomed respectfully, the letter in which we were asked to leave our land earned us asylum in this land of others. In a few months, we learned a new language, new customs, and ways of behaving, but we also learned that, no matter how far we were from our home, our hearts were always going to miss that beautiful mountainside, the river whit its crystal clear water and that forest where fresh fruits grew at our fingertips, that all we left behind remained in our hearts, regardless of distances, the bonds that bind us to people never disappear, I, thousands of miles away, continued to love Maria, our lives had been bound in such a way that they would never be unleashed again, we were each other and we knew it.

The months passed quickly, the wounds always end up healing, life was gradually reconstructed, as long as one has air in the lungs and desire to get ahead, rebuild is always an option, start over is possible. My dad and I gradually overcome the loss, we begin to pursue other goals, we resign ourselves to the idea that justice might never come and that there was no choice but to rise again for us. I forgot the pain of the loss I buried it deep in the bottom of my soul and never thought about it again, but never for a minute I stopped remembering the smell of her skin, the peace I felt when I lay my head on her warm chest and played with the curls of her hair, that was the only home I was not willing to lose and, luckily for me, she felt just like me. My dad thought we'd end up forgetting each other, that I would do my last year of school here and end up falling for a light-skinned, blue-eyed girl, her family also believed that the next year, when she had to go to town to work, she'd leave the passing whim of continuing to my side, but none of that ever happened. Two more years passed and yet neither of us sought another love, without anyone but me knowing the taste of her lips, without no other but her completely occupying my dreams, our love life became an endless chain of text messages and our Friday nights in hours and hours of video calls, tons of bitter laughter, of shared dreams, of kisses to the screen and of impossible illusions, the happier we were together, the deeper the fact that we were separated burned.

Maria and I promised to make a family, we decided that we wanted a life together in this country, but, for the daughter of a peasant in a third world country, with no more education than the lessons that a difficult life gives and a young migrant who recently came to a country only with what he could carry in a suitcase, the costs of a migration process for her seemed to be well above our means, yet we dreamed, we would fall asleep every night talking about the things that would lead her to see when she was here with me, how much she would like snow, and I even began to teach her to speak English. We calculated that, between airfare, visa, and proof of funds, we would need about $12 thousand dollars to get back together, we could do it! I started keeping a diary, a little black book in which I wrote everything down, the plans we made, the money I saved, the one I spent, every move or idea we could have to get closer to our common goal, working overtime whenever I could, never bought anything for me, kept every penny and so the days went by, saving, loving, dreaming and waiting, then, when we were so close to achieving our common goal that we could almost touch it with the tip of our fingers dad died, he was not used to driving in the snow, within a few days of having bought the car he had dreamed of from the day we got off the plane, he had a fatal crash on the highway, leaving me alone, with debts, sad, with so much pain that I could only express it with an empty smile, it was not until I stood in front of the coffin that contained the body of the only relative I ever met, of someone who loved me and always took care of me, that I could understand his reaction the day we lost our lands.

Within few weeks I lost everything I had saved, Maria supported me as much as she could, called me, sent me messages of encouragement, told me how much she loved me, but, in the midst of pain, a truth we had tried to deny became apparent, that a million messages at a painful time cannot do the same as a hug, we were not really together. At that moment, for the first time in all these years, we thought about breaking up, we kept loving each other, but continuing to wait for a dream that we simply could not afford was too painful, the notebook in which we had written our dreams was hidden in a drawer, I thought for a moment that our love was simply not meant to be, that we would have to face our reality sooner or later and to understand that we would never be together again.

When we were about to lose all hope a ray of light in the midst of darkness reminded us that sometimes we suffer from pain that we did not cause and laugh at the triumphs of which we knew nothing, I had no way of knowing that at the same time as the black notebook in which my dreams were written was hidden in a dark drawer , another notebook of the same color, thousands of miles away, came to light, The accountant of the black eagles was being captured, his accounts books confiscated, every inch of land from which they had illegally appropriated was about to be restored to its legitimate owners, at last, having lived the last four years as a refugee , after fighting tooth and nail with the government of my country to recognize our rights, after my dad, who had never lost hope, left this world without ever having received a little justice for all the suffering that a war outside of us caused him, the truth was finally known, my rights to my father's land , the one that was taken from us without any contemplation, were finally recognized and the justice I never thought was to come was finally served. Shortly after my father's death, I received a call from the embassy, the recognition of our situation as victims of the conflict, the capture of those who had destroyed our lives, and a $20,000 check as compensation for the damage suffered, came to fix my life, to give me new hope. Thanks to that money I am standing today in front of the airport arrival door, waiting for her, with a bouquet of roses in one hand and an engagement ring in my jacket's pocket, eagerly waiting for the opportunity to feel the warm kiss that Maria and I promised so many years ago, impatient to be able to shed tears of happiness that make me forget all the pain, all the waiting, all the loneliness, with the feeling that the future is uncertain but, for the first time in many years, I have the feeling that everything will be fine.