What Are You Smiling About? By: Sofi Henshaw

Seeing a child with a smile from cheek to cheek should always warm your heart; why is it that when Hugo, Franky, or so many of the children we have seen cannot stop smiling you are filled with nothing but doubt. I cannot help but wonder, is it that they are so poor that now they are happy to have a warm bed to sleep in? is it the separation and reunification, that they could not be any more appreciative of their dads? Is it that they are so tired of running that now they can finally relax and smile? Denial? Disassociation? Real happiness? Thankfulness? Hope?

The questions do not end yet, there are no answers. There is no way to follow it through. There is no way of knowing how the case ends, whether you actually helped or made things worse.  My frustration grows and grows, and it is so hard to believe their beautiful smiles are real. Because they truly are beautiful.

When my daughters smile I know exactly how they feel, whether they are faking it, they are having fun, they are truly happy, just being polite etc. I can even tell when it is a mix of emotions and understand why.

These children have been though such an emotional roller-coaster, I cannot understand how these smiles could be truly genuine and pure but that is what I see. Of course, not all of these children are smiling, not always, and not all the time. Some of these children are broken, defeated and cannot hide it nor do they try to.

I do not need to repeat the terrors they have lived, which sound straight out of a horror movie.  How could I not feel frustrated for them/about them?  How does anyone not?  How can these smiles be genuine?

Many of them have drawn little pictures for me or made me origami animals or drawn chalk board hearts. Yesterday, it seemed the bigger the heart on the chalk board the better.

I feel like these are the sizes of their hearts, they make them bigger because they grow and grow every day. And yes, I do feel special when they show me or when they give them to me, because yes, I am grateful to be here, and everyone that is here has come to help, but I get to take with me a little piece of them home, a memory, and I can only hope that they will remember me too. I hope that I have actually helped, whether on their case or their heart.

These kids are nothing but some the bravest kids I have ever met (and yes, being a mom, you do meet a lot of them). The things they have suffered, seen, felt and yet they somehow keep on smiling. A truly big smile, a beautiful smile. They smile at the possibility of staying, they smile at the possibility of returning to their family, whether they are to go back to a war-torn country or not, they smile at the fact that they have a chance to stay.  Their outlook, their positivity, their faith that it will all work out in such a bleak situation, no matter what, it grounds me.

The dads are nothing but a ball of anxiety, of pain and weight carried on their shoulders.  They will not tell you, they try to be the strong one, but you see it in their hands. Yes, they want to be brave: brave enough to have left half of the family somewhere else, brave enough to fight, brave enough to quit and sometimes even brave enough to leave their child here for him to get a better future. With decisions like these, there is no way to think clearly, no way to be calm. But they want to be strong, which parent doesn’t? we do anything for our kids. These men have crossed countries to make it here for a mere chance that they can stay, but even if they cant, to give up their most precious possession, their child. (yes! just objectified kids, but I promise it is not in a weird way). They are doing whatever it takes to find a safe harbor, and if they cannot get it, their child might at least get it. I admire them.

I could not make my post about the bravery of the group that came to Karnes, about the great help the people of Raices are giving here, about how thankful I am to be here, about the great work that is being done, etc. Those all seem so minute compared to the smiles, whether real or fake, for just a second or all day.  This is not meant to be a happy post, what is happening to them is not fair, it is only a reminder of the fact that I have to be truly thankful. I get to go home at the end, I get to hug my kids and tuck them in at night, kiss them and squeeze them. None of these children know when (or if) they will ever be able to see their mothers again. Even in the best case scenario, where they have a good asylum case, where their claim is real, genuine and strong I cannot promise they will see their mothers again, I cannot promise they will be fair to them, I cannot even promise that they will not be yanked away from their fathers again. The geographical place they were born has defined who they are and how they are treated. And even worse, our volatile system can change in the blink of an eye, or the flip of a coin. I can’t even promise their dads are going to be with them until they are safe again. These kids don’t actually know what safe is.

While I am thankful and grateful, I leave without ease or satisfaction that I have done my piece. There is too much to be done yet.

This post was originally published at "STU Karnes Project", a blog coordinated by Donna Nasimov. (https://stukarnes.wordpress.com)