I still dream about it. I miss my family, and I miss the time I spent there. It was like I left all the bad things behind when I went there, and even though just as much bad happened there as there was good, I am still thankful for the experience.
Fields upon fields of sunflowers drying in the hot sun greeted me as we drove through the countryside. They would be collected to press for oil. I remember fields of corn and high towers of metal that reminded me of home, but the air smelled different. Even the clouds were different. They were large and gentle above our heads, sentinels in the azure sky. The landscape was different yet familiar, strange yet oddly I felt at home. I was no tourist, no distant visitor; instead I was a daughter of the country, welcomed in its embrace. All my previous fears and anxieties dissipated beneath the heat of the Gallic sun, and I was home.
The night I spent alone in the emergency room was awful, made only bearable by the vigilance of the kind nurse who spoke English to me. His hands, so confident when he searched my arm for arteries, started shaking when he failed. His trembling frightened me, so I clung to his hand to steady him.
When the doctor told my uncle and mother that they had to leave me there overnight, I almost cried in front of them. But I didn't. I waited until they turned off the lights and closed the door with the reassurance that all would be taken care of in the morning. I turned to my left side, away from the door so that no one might see me, careful not to disrupt the flow of the IV, and I cried lonely tears into my pillow. There was only one person I wanted there with me, but he would never come to my side, nor would he ever speak to me again, yet I still wished and hoped until I fell into an uneasy sleep.
When I came back from the hospital, I slept for a whole day. I had been welcomed home by this country, and I had tasted its delights as well as the reality of pain, and maybe this was the unexpected adventure I always longed for.
The day before staying in the hospital, my family had a string-tying ceremony and dinner for my mother and I. They tied scores and scores of white strings around both our wrists, and we ate an elaborate yet distinctly Hmong meal. At the hospital, when one of the nurses put the patient wristband on me, she noticed the strings and gave me an inquiring look.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" she asked.
I said, "It's a symbol of love."
Her face told me she didn't comprehend.
"Un symbole d'amour.... de ma famille," I said in halting French.
That's all I have left now: symbols and memories and souvenirs from my time over there. There is also the reassurance that I have a family there who loves me, and also the knowledge that they're only an ocean away, an email away, and a text message away. Being among them and trying to maneuver my way through a country that was both foreign and familiar at the same time reminded me that this world is very large and beautiful, and even though there are terrible things that may happen to us at any given time, we should always hold near what we love and treasure. The time away was good for my heart and soul. I left the States with reluctance and a broken heart, and I came back with a heart full of love and life.
I remember the first time I opened the window of my room in my uncle's house. French houses don't have outer screens like we do here. The windows were large metal grates, and once unlatched and pushed open, the world was right there, large and immediate in its vivacity. It demanded to be met full on. It was awake. It was alive. There was no room for the past or for aching regrets. There was only that open window with the cool breeze pushing my hair back, and all of the world before me.