Today I would like to share with you something very but very personal: the true story before coming to the United States and since then until today. Please excuse the length of this entry...not even a huge entry can hold all that really took place. So please, set aside a little of your time to read all three parts of this entry, then you will see the reason of its title. move to another state...most of you who read this entry right now have never had to move from your country, the place you were raised and grew up in, where your culture was formed and instituted, where you grew up with unbreakable and perpetual friendships, where you formed your life.
The wound in my entire being still cries out to the top of its voice...it is a pain that I had never experienced before, that I never thought I would face although I knew it was coming my way.
From years ago we had planned to come to Los Angeles because God put it in my dad's heart that we would do it. Years passed and the veil still remained on my eyes. So much time shared with my family and friends and I never apreciated and cherished them for what they really are. What I desire the most now was before something I didn't worry to lose because there was nothing imminent in my way that would snatch it...which is not the case now...
Mid November 2006 - The night was strange, my family arrived to have a farewell party for my dad who was coming to LA next day. It was bittersweet, but I was really in my comfort zone, my home, my roots. Of course it pained me that my dad was leaving and that we would be separated...but not for a long time because the plan was to leave soon after my dad had found a place for us to live in in order to move. There was no danger yet...even before all of that we already knew my dad would be leaving first and my last days in my last year of school with my friends with whom I shared six years of my life were equally bitter...it would be the last times I would live with all of my brothers in Christ...my friends...my faithful friends...the last independence day celebration in september...the last homework, on last glimpse of the place that took me under its wing for so many years.
School ended. We went with my friends to celebrate...and give me a farewell party. Still we didn't know the date we would be leaving. We went to the gym with my brother, all cool, nothing to worry about more than the pain of knowing I would never again see all of my friends together.
December 24 2007, midnight - The fireworks disabled our sight and hearing (too much smoke and the entire country blowing up fireworks) completely...it was a moment that transported me and made me feel the best...but at the same time the sword started piercing my heart: it would be my last christmas, no more fireworks in Salvadorian style, no more living with the same people, MY PEOPLE!
We shared that christmas with my little sister Fanny, I didn't know her at all really by then, but in that christmas time (and New Year's Eve as well) we share unforgettable times and all my family and her spent an excelent christmas...but still with all the presents and all the fireworks and the moment, they couldn't take from my mind the reality: I will not see nothing of these nor this people again for a long time. I cannot really express you the pain I feel each time I remember all this...it's something that accompanies me everywhere.
New Year's Eve - Part of this year I would live it in El Salvador...most of that year I would live it in the United States and much more than that. My spirit cried in unexpressable pain...but my external appearance was trying to enjoy this last event that was so but so special which marked the end of a year and the beginning of another...really for me it had a completely different meaning: death of my life and the beginning of a life in death.
I still went to church...apparently I had forgotten everything for some time and I was living my normal life. I went to church and played the drums, I spent some time with my family and other with my friends...although not enough...
One night my aunt Imelda gave me an advice that for then I had head many times, but that I now treasure and value...for it is the only thing that takes me near hear and my family and closer to God's will: "You are going to a very obscure environment, where people have no fear of God...you are going there to make a difference, to be a light to all those people that need Jesus so much. That is your purpose."
Monday February 5th 2008 - It was night, my brother and I were playing in the computer. Everything was normal...the sudden scream from my mother took us back from our world...we never expected the horror of the news we received...nor the intense and unexpressable anguish that news caused us when it stabbed us right in the heart piercing it to the very bottom.
My mom, with tears in her face, lifted her distracted face and answered what our anxious faces awaited: "It was your dad...he says...he says that we're leaving on Wednesday." For a moment it seemed to me very funny...but very cruel from my mom to do such a cruel joke to us...the pain in her face assured us that it was no joke...
Thus it was, with no previous warning or time to digest it that we were torn from our roots. My mind started rewinding my life in my country. All the momens I shared with my friends, my family, my home, my dogs, my drums...all that I was was murdered in that moment in cold blood. I wonder how I didn't faint in that moment. The only way in which my wound bled was through tears, unstopping tears that still run today. If I could only express you the magnitude of all that went through my mind in that moment...if I could just do it...you would understand better what I went through then and still go through today.
When I get sad I get mad at the same time. I ran to my room and shut the door....I wept as I had never wept. I put my pillow over my head to muffle my weeping, but no matter how much I tried it could be heard as much as if I had never put the pillow on. I don't know how much time I spent my time weeping in bed, I had cried nights before seeing a photo album my great friend Rebeca made for me with all her love as a farewell gift, but this time...it was something that tore me apart, it mutilated me.
After I stopped crying a little I called y friends. I couldn't reach many of them. I called Rebeca: "Bk (that's how I call her) I'm leaving on Wednesday!" not even I could believe what I was saying. "What!?" "I'm leaving on Wednesday to the United States..." I don't remember the rest of the conversation...my mind was overloaded...I was able to reach other friends to tell them the same.
We went out with my brother to take some fresh air. It was night. Never, I tell you, never had I seen my country in such a beautiful way...how could I be so blind!? how could I not appropriate my country? how couldn't I make it so beautiful for my life as to take advantage of every second in it? how could I be so selfish with my family an my friends!? HOW COULD IT BE POSSIBLE!?
I don't need to tell you I couldn't sleep that night. The next day the same ground I stepped on was as unstable as my sanity. Every dust particle was now a pearl to me. But now there was no time to appreciate all that...we had to start preparing all the things and processes that had to be done to be able to leave...
We started going to many places...after begging we were able to go to my school where...for the last time...I would see my war compatriots, my brothers, my friends. The place where for six years I had experienced so much was one of many that were now fading away. I would not see them as much as I would not ever see all my friends together. I shared the news to them and we shared our last moments together. The bell rang. In that moment I took a lot of pictures with them but I still went to their class and ask the teacher to give me a little of her time to say goodbye to them. She granted me that time.
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