“Poor baby,” said the labor and delivery nurse as she held the new baby in her calloused, tender hands at Mercy Hospital in Brownsville, Texas.
“Born at a time like this. And his family has no papers. Who’ll take care of him and his family? Who’ll work to heal their wounds?”
His name was Hilcias.
His mamí and abuelo had just crossed over into the United States.
They’d ridden a train ominously named The Beast all the way from the scorched earth of El Salvador to the border of Mexico.
The weary, broken migrants called the land beyond that border the promised land.
His mamí was pregnant with him and the time had come for her to deliver.
A car stopped in front of St. Mary’s Church in the middle of the city.
The silent driver made the sign of the cross over the little family put them out on the street with nothing on their backs but their tattered clothes.
The old abuelo’s shoes were as battered and wrinkled as his skin.
The young woman’s sandals fell apart many miles ago.
She was barefooted.
The abuelo lifted the iron knocker on the stained oak church door and let it fall back onto its tarnished iron plate.
He did this again and again until a nun cracked open the door to the night.
The nun had worked in the inner 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 Gustavo 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 seeing a new life born into the world.
Their bodies were heavy with suffering.
They were covered with the dirt and sweat and blood from the thousands of miles of migration along the migratory road.
Their shoulders sagged under the weight of months of homelessness.
The only homes they found during the journey were the small spaces of simple kindnesses that people showed them along the way.
They were very still and very quiet.
They didn’t make a sound.
The nun was especially struck by the sight of Maria.
She was sitting on the bottom step of the church, her bare feet pressed flat against the concrete sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her swollen belly, and her face anguished in the pains of labor.
“I’m here,” whispered the nun.
"Vamanos á la carro," she cried out.
“We need to get to the hospital now!
Let’s go!”
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