Rhubarb

By Katie Lane

In the wild field just beyond the playground was a patch of rhubarb. Tangles of ruffly leaves and spindly pink stalks shot up from the ground. In the dirt stood my youngest sister, gnawing on an uprooted piece. She was hungry; the orphanage that she and our other sister lived in most likely did not have much food.

Simultaneously an ocean away, a family of three in a California town felt lost. Something was missing. Actually, two somethings.

A judge brought my family together on July 4th. To scores of Americans, the 4th of July is a day off from work, to grill, to drink, and to blow shit up. To me, it’s a celebration of my imperfect family and the country that welcomed this newly formed union of five over two decades ago. Families of all types belong here, regardless of their origin.

It hasn’t always been easy. The trauma sustained in childhood can be a powerful force to work through and overcome. When I see the photos of the children in detention centers, or, more cruelly put, “summer camps,” my heart aches in the same way it did when one of my sisters would cry out in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter if they came here “legally” or “illegally.” Love transcends visas and immigration papers.

For 21 years, my sisters have been American citizens, but that doesn’t stop my anxious heart from beating faster at the thought of them being harassed by some government official. It’s happened before. I know it will happen again. Border patrol agents at the British Columbia-Washington border once barked accusingly at my dad, “Why are two passengers in this car not born in the United States?”

Why cause this inhumanity? Why cause this trauma? To attack people who have nothing — who come from nothing in search of a better life — is barbaric. Our country should be better that this.

I don’t live near my family anymore. I will someday but not for now. Better job prospects in an overpriced city called to me several years ago. This year, I hold my sisters a little tighter, even if it’s only through texts and FaceTime.

Today, I’ll go to the grocery store and pick some late-season rhubarb. I might bake a pie, maybe a crumble, possibly a cake. I’ll wash and trim the stalks, slicing off a thin half-moon piece and eat it raw. My face will scrunch up at the sourness and I will wonder how my sister could ever eat an entire hunk of rhubarb raw.

I’ll work butter into flour and I’ll honor my sisters. My immigrant sisters. My American sisters. Our sisters.

And hope, hope, and hope that some humanity comes back to our wayward land.

And then I’ll do something more constructive and donate money to RAICES.