Tough stuff

I had to go to a funeral today for a client. I work with refugees who are resettled into the United States. She was from Congo. She had been ** and tortured during the conflict in Kivu and later gave birth to her baby in a refugee camp. During her abuse, her attackers used foreign objects that gave her an infection, which led to a rare from of cancer called synovial sarcoma. She died last weekend. She was 22.

Her case was sent to our agency during the current administration’s 190 day travel ban, but was approved because she had special medical conditions. We were told she would only have 3 months after she arrived here in March of 2017. We had 10 months with her. She loved milk and oranges, music, and her baby girl.

I’m writing this because even though I didn’t know her well, I miss her and I’m sorry that she died. I feel for her family; for her kind brother who came with her to the U.S. and took such gentle care of her while she was slipping away. I feel for her sweet daughter, who is almost 3 and developing slowly. She doesn’t talk, but her eyes speak.

I’m writing because there is a forced reflection that comes with loss. I can’t talk to my colleagues about this because we don’t know how to talk about it with each other. Everyday our jobs require us to immerse ourselves into the lives of people who have experienced unspeakable evils and trauma, and we take care of them. We find them homes, buy them food, bring their children to their first day of American school, take them to the doctor when they’re sick, and worry about them when we go home at night. It is a fluid state of professionalism and human emotion. Grief and hope permeates every moment, but there is no space to feel vulnerable. For me that boundary is difficult to navigate all the time, but especially tonight. I don’t have a question, I just needed to write this and know that it would heard. Thanks for reading it.

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