To migrate is, also, to leave people behind. To die a little, as the french say. Our forefathers knew that better, going throughout that long transatlantic cross. We, with facebook and skype, tend to forget it. We keep the illusion that we know how our friends are doing, that they are still our friends, that our relation means something. Yet it is an open question, even if a theoretical one. What has really gone on behind the screen and the photos in insta and the few sentences in facebook? what does a linkedin “change of employment” or “work anniversary” really mean? Questions that become, all of a sudden, very real ones. Because it is not only facebook and skype, but also flights and transcontinental holidays which enable us, even if once in a blue moon, to see our friends again.
So it happens that yesterday, with the heart in the hands and a whirlwind of old feelings in my head, I meet Eladio, Rosa and their daughter Veronica in a cafe in France. For once our holidays crossed, and after 19 years we were due to meet again. In this time we worked, migrated, did research, got titles (or not)… we married, we had kids. A whole life has passed in the blink of an eye. What would happen now?
What happens is that now, a whole day later and with the kilometers between us growing again, I can’t wipe this silly smile from my face. The excited smile of becoming -again- excited with Eladio on that old discussion over group behavior shaping life and politics. The sad smile of recognition at the wet eyes of Rosa, at her broken voice describing the indescribable, the losing of what once was our country. And this smile that will go in longer than any of us, the smile of Veronica and her blowing us and our silly adult conversations away. With the small weight of Veronica’s hand imprinted in mine still now, with the memory of the hands of my son, I smile indeed. We did lose our countries, we who migrate. And yet our sons and daughters will live on, long after we have reunited with the green earth. If I could look into the eyes of Rosa once again, I would tell her: it is ok, Rosa. It is ok that they are our only possible country. It is as it should be.
So I smile on.
