I Be Here
By Trevor Scott Barton
Ordinary Time 2018
“Po lidda fella,” said the old, weathered woman with skin as dark and wrinkled as bark and arms as thin and knobby as the farthest reaches of the branches of the inland’s ancient oak trees. She spoke with the accent of her Gullah ancestors, who had created a new language in the lowcountry of South Carolina by mixing their west African heart words with the English words they were forced to learn when they were stolen away from their own people and lands and brought here to America.
She lived a holey floored, crack walled, Duck taped windowed shotgun style shack on John’s Island left over from the days of slavery and Jim Crow. She fished along the inlet and the shoreline each morning trying to catch red fish, sea trout and flounder to go with the fruits and vegetables out of her garden. She wove baskets out of sweet grass from the late mornings to the early evenings.
“Jus sits dere,” she continued, “Eva monin’ as de sun rises ova de ocean an sits on de wada like a ripe tomata. Neva says one word. Jus sits dere a’watchin de wada and a’list’nin to de waves.”
One day she walked over to him and stood beside him. The sun cast her shadow over him as to protect him from the brightness of the new day. “Wha’s yo name?” she asked kindly. “My name’s Mattie. Could you tell me yo name?”
He turned his earthy brown eyes to her. He didn’t say one thing. She figured he didn’t understand her. His Mami and Abuelo were migrant workers picking peaches and tomatoes in the lowcountry summer until they were reasy to move down with the fall and winter to the coasts of Georgia and Florida. She thought maybe he only spoke Spanish, since his family had made it to South Carolina from the farms and fields of El Salvador in Central America.
Suddenly, he whistled! It astonished her, and she almost fell over into the sand. The sound was unlike any whistle she had ever heard before. A usual whistle as two notes and a high pitch, but this was an unusual whistle. It’s sound had all kinds of notes in it, and the pitch went high and low, low and high and all kinds of places in between. It was as if the great composers had written his whistle at the height of their compositional powers.
“Ya know, it was like he was a’tryin to say somepin to me in a be-yoo-tee-ful way,” she explained, “But I din’ hab no idée whad id was.”
He looked back over the water and at the sky again, and was very still and quiet. She felt a wide compassion for him in the deepest part of her heart.
The road from the countryside of El Salvador to the lowcountry of South Carolina is long and hard. If you take the time and make the effort to ask the migrants along that road, “Why are you trying to make it to the United States?” they will answer, “I’m trying to find una vida major, a better life. The journey along this road is fraught with danger and heartbreak. Listen to these words from journalist Oscar Martines, who embedded himself with migrants on the migratory trail from Central America to the Mexican – United States border and wrote about the people he met in his book The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail. "We walk on, telling ourselves that if we get attacked, we get attacked. There’s nothing we can do. The suffering that the migrants endure on the trail doesn’t heal quickly. Migrants don’t just die, they’re not just maimed or shot or hacked to death. The scars of their journey don’t only mark their bodies. They run deeper than that. Living in such fear leaves something inside them, a trace and a swelling that grabs hold of their thoughts and cycles through their heads over and over. It takes at least a month of travel to reach Mexico’s northern border…Who takes care of them? Who works to heal their wounds?" Before The Beast was translated into English, it was titled Los Migrantes Que No Importan, The Migrants Who Don’t Matter.
It is important to remember that people do not leave their family, their land unless they have to. If your children are threatened by violence, disease or famine you migrate and look for una vida major for them. If your house is bombed and your land is stolen from you, you migrate and look for una vida major. If you open your cupboard, and there is nothing there but dust, and you reach into your pockets to find money to buy food, and there is nothing there but dust, and there is no sustaining work for you to do to support your family, but only dust, you migrate and look for una vida major.
No, no one wants to leave their family, their land unless they have to. No one wants to take on the danger and heartbreak of migration unless they have to. But some people have to. And here in the United States, there are seeds that need to be planted, tended and harvested, and there are farmers willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there are motel rooms that need to be cleaned, and there are businesses willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there are houses that need to be built, and there are builders willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there is work that needs to be done that could provide una vida major for the worker. There is a way for the migrant to find food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, medical care, and education where there was none before. There is a way unless we block that way for them, unless we think they don’t matter.
“Poor baby,” said the labor and delivery nurse as she held the new baby in her soft, supple hands at Mercy Hospital in Miami, Florida. “Born at a time like this. And his family has no papers. Who will take care of him and his family? Who will work to heal their wounds?”
His name was Hilcias. His Mami and Abuelo had just crossed over into the United States. They had ridden The Beast all the way from the scorched earth of El Salvador to the dark, inner-city streets of Miami.
His Mami was pregnant with him and the time had come for her to deliver him. A car had stopped in front of St. Mary’s Church in the middle of the city. The silent driver made the sign of the cross over her and his Abuelo and put them out on the street with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs. The old man shoes were as battered and wrinkled as his skin. Her sandals had fallen apart many miles ago so she had no shoes at all.
His Abuelo lifted the iron knocker on the old wooden oak door and let it fall back onto it’s tarnished iron plate. He did this again and again until a nun cracked open a door to the night.
The nun had worked in the city for many years and had seen many things. But never had she seen the suffering and beauty she saw in the faces of Maria and Josef at the church door that night.
Their eyes were alight with beauty – the beauty of being in a new land without war, without violence – the beauty of bringing a new life into the world.
Their bodies were heavy with suffering. They were covered with the dirt and sweat of thousands of miles of migration along the migratory road.
Their shoulders sagged under the weight of months of homelessness. The only homes they had found along the migrant road were the small spaces of simple kindness that people had shown them along the way.
They were still and quiet.
They didn’t make a sound.
The old nun wrapped her armes around Maria and Josef.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
The old Gullah woman wrapped her arm around Hilcias as the tide rolled in and out in the dawn. She placed her warm, calloused hand on his cheek.
“I be here,” she whispered.
“I be here.”
“Jus sits dere,” she continued, “Eva monin’ as de sun rises ova de ocean an sits on de wada like a ripe tomata. Neva says one word. Jus sits dere a’watchin de wada and a’list’nin to de waves.”
One day she walked over to him and stood beside him. The sun cast her shadow over him as to protect him from the brightness of the new day. “Wha’s yo name?” she asked kindly. “My name’s Mattie. Could you tell me yo name?”
He turned his earthy brown eyes to her. He didn’t say one thing. She figured he didn’t understand her. His Mami and Abuelo were migrant workers picking peaches and tomatoes in the lowcountry summer until they were reasy to move down with the fall and winter to the coasts of Georgia and Florida. She thought maybe he only spoke Spanish, since his family had made it to South Carolina from the farms and fields of El Salvador in Central America.
Suddenly, he whistled! It astonished her, and she almost fell over into the sand. The sound was unlike any whistle she had ever heard before. A usual whistle as two notes and a high pitch, but this was an unusual whistle. It’s sound had all kinds of notes in it, and the pitch went high and low, low and high and all kinds of places in between. It was as if the great composers had written his whistle at the height of their compositional powers.
“Ya know, it was like he was a’tryin to say somepin to me in a be-yoo-tee-ful way,” she explained, “But I din’ hab no idée whad id was.”
He looked back over the water and at the sky again, and was very still and quiet. She felt a wide compassion for him in the deepest part of her heart.
The road from the countryside of El Salvador to the lowcountry of South Carolina is long and hard. If you take the time and make the effort to ask the migrants along that road, “Why are you trying to make it to the United States?” they will answer, “I’m trying to find una vida major, a better life. The journey along this road is fraught with danger and heartbreak. Listen to these words from journalist Oscar Martines, who embedded himself with migrants on the migratory trail from Central America to the Mexican – United States border and wrote about the people he met in his book The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail. "We walk on, telling ourselves that if we get attacked, we get attacked. There’s nothing we can do. The suffering that the migrants endure on the trail doesn’t heal quickly. Migrants don’t just die, they’re not just maimed or shot or hacked to death. The scars of their journey don’t only mark their bodies. They run deeper than that. Living in such fear leaves something inside them, a trace and a swelling that grabs hold of their thoughts and cycles through their heads over and over. It takes at least a month of travel to reach Mexico’s northern border…Who takes care of them? Who works to heal their wounds?" Before The Beast was translated into English, it was titled Los Migrantes Que No Importan, The Migrants Who Don’t Matter.
It is important to remember that people do not leave their family, their land unless they have to. If your children are threatened by violence, disease or famine you migrate and look for una vida major for them. If your house is bombed and your land is stolen from you, you migrate and look for una vida major. If you open your cupboard, and there is nothing there but dust, and you reach into your pockets to find money to buy food, and there is nothing there but dust, and there is no sustaining work for you to do to support your family, but only dust, you migrate and look for una vida major.
No, no one wants to leave their family, their land unless they have to. No one wants to take on the danger and heartbreak of migration unless they have to. But some people have to. And here in the United States, there are seeds that need to be planted, tended and harvested, and there are farmers willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there are motel rooms that need to be cleaned, and there are businesses willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there are houses that need to be built, and there are builders willing to pay a wage for someone to do it. Here in the United States, there is work that needs to be done that could provide una vida major for the worker. There is a way for the migrant to find food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, medical care, and education where there was none before. There is a way unless we block that way for them, unless we think they don’t matter.
“Poor baby,” said the labor and delivery nurse as she held the new baby in her soft, supple hands at Mercy Hospital in Miami, Florida. “Born at a time like this. And his family has no papers. Who will take care of him and his family? Who will work to heal their wounds?”
His name was Hilcias. His Mami and Abuelo had just crossed over into the United States. They had ridden The Beast all the way from the scorched earth of El Salvador to the dark, inner-city streets of Miami.
His Mami was pregnant with him and the time had come for her to deliver him. A car had stopped in front of St. Mary’s Church in the middle of the city. The silent driver made the sign of the cross over her and his Abuelo and put them out on the street with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs. The old man shoes were as battered and wrinkled as his skin. Her sandals had fallen apart many miles ago so she had no shoes at all.
His Abuelo lifted the iron knocker on the old wooden oak door and let it fall back onto it’s tarnished iron plate. He did this again and again until a nun cracked open a door to the night.
The nun had worked in the city for many years and had seen many things. But never had she seen the suffering and beauty she saw in the faces of Maria and Josef at the church door that night.
Their eyes were alight with beauty – the beauty of being in a new land without war, without violence – the beauty of bringing a new life into the world.
Their bodies were heavy with suffering. They were covered with the dirt and sweat of thousands of miles of migration along the migratory road.
Their shoulders sagged under the weight of months of homelessness. The only homes they had found along the migrant road were the small spaces of simple kindness that people had shown them along the way.
They were still and quiet.
They didn’t make a sound.
The old nun wrapped her armes around Maria and Josef.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
The old Gullah woman wrapped her arm around Hilcias as the tide rolled in and out in the dawn. She placed her warm, calloused hand on his cheek.
“I be here,” she whispered.
“I be here.”
