I Die proud

AbiYah sat on the train looking through the window as she often did on her way to work but found herself fighting back tears and tried hard to hide it under her usual smile. She would look at the houses zipping by and would imagine stories about the people who lived in them based colors, architecture and landscape. Her mother taught her how to use her imagination to create stories from observing anything. Back then, this was her main activity on the train rides to and from the city with her parents. Oh, how far she had come? Her journey as a refugee in search of safety over the past six years still seem so surreal.

She came to America as a young refugee two years ago and despite being scared and scarred, she was hopeful. Everything that meant anything to her had been ripped away because of her refusal to accept injustice in her homeland Nigeria. How could a place so beautiful and alive, be so unjust at the same time? Abiyah’s career as an advocate and writer was one, she had struggled to attain. She could still hear her mother’s voice saying, “AbiYah our sacrifices are for you to be who we could not be”. Her parents worked tirelessly so she could access education up to the doctoral level and they beamed proudly at each graduation. They were fearful for her, but knew she made a difference that was needed across the African continent.

She missed her family beyond words and could not believe that her parents were gone. They were executed by politicians before she was run out of her home country. And while she was thankful, freedom had not been able to heal her pain nor had it quenched her anger. Her father’s last words before he died from the house bomb that killed her parents, still console and encourage her. With failing breath, he whispered, “live to fight another day, little princess, I die proud”. Now here she was riding the train in New York, a struggling writer who cleans houses for a living. The land of the free and home of the brave with its many opportunities, has not been so giving to her. No matter how hard she tried it seemed that she could be certain she’d get knocked back down.

Like the little girl back in Nigeria, she made stories up in her head about the regular passengers on the train. While not the same, she still made jottings in her little black notebook. Her new life seemed to have sucked inspiration and hope from her. This once award-winning, brilliant writer was now a nobody, a nameless face. The only curiosity extended to her was usually, “why don’t you have an accent or are you from Europe?” The many articles and investigative pieces she did, research into corruption and even her presentation to the United Nations, were now all distant memories trapped in a pass she was encouraged to forget.

Despite winning a few writing competitions since living in America, she still just never felt like she would ever regain any semblance of who she was. Defeated was the word she wrote often in her little black notebook, and increasingly she doodled and drew more than she wrote. Her Dad had given AbiYah her first black notebook and he had encourage her to write down her ideas as they came to mind. This was the most powerful tool she had used to accomplish the writing success she previously had. Now it was a connection to sanity.

As if things were not hard enough for a refugee woman, she had to now deal with a pandemic. COVID-19 had come and put not just America but the entire world into slow motion. For months she could not work and as things began to wake up from a forced hibernation there were fewer familiar faces on the train. The train rides were now tense, and a cough or sneeze was meted with an unspoken gasp of fear. The world post COVID took away the smiles from faces and greetings were few.

AbiYah figured that what she had suffered had numbed her to the changes taking place around her. She still reached out to several elderly neighbors and did errands for them to keep active. This eventually earned her some extra cash to make up for the loss of income from being locked down in quarantine. Quarantine restrictions remined her of trekking through Africa to get to the mainland in South Africa where she applied for refugee status. So, the fear of the pandemic didn’t deter her from reaching out and keeping connected to her elderly neighbors, and train companions. She would worry when one disappeared as many were disappearing from the onslaught of COVId-19.

There was one particular elderly man on the train that caught AbiYah’s attention. He always sat in the same spot and based on his features he looked Italian. AbiYah was a master at identifying races from her years of covering United Nation Assembly meetings. This exposure introduced her to many cultures, and she became very good at identifying ethnicity from physical features. Despite this man always looked very serious she would still always smile with him. Like her, he was always busy writing in his own little black notebook which made her curious. She created a story about him being a former mob boss and famous author making notes for his next criminal mind bestseller. She was amused, at the stereotype of Italians because mobsters, she too was often stereotyped by others as being uneducated and unintelligent because she was African and a refugee.

On this particular morning, AbiYah struggled with her own feelings of helplessness and could barely focus on the few familiar faces on the train even her favorite Italian mobster Max. Almost missing her stop she zipped through the door and as she looked up Max looked down at her and his eyes smiled with her over his mask, and she could feel him encouraging her that everything would be okay. AbiYah laughed out loud to herself as she whispered, “girl you need to call your therapist tomorrow, because I swear you are getting crazy”. With that she raised her shoulders and eyes and lifted her soul to face the day’s work. She went to her three clients smiling and cleaning until evening. And despite working for grateful people it never distracted her from the sorrow of this life.

As she rode the train home that evening there was no great change in her mood. The sorrow was now overwhelmed by the tiredness of her muscles from cleaning the filth of others. She was used to filth whether corrupt politicians or dirty toilets she never seemed to escape the call to clean up filth. She got off the train one stop early and after stopping at the grocery, she saw an old man fall ahead of her, and instinctively she dashed over to help. She was startled to see it was her very own Italian Max. As he clutched his chest coughing, he pulled his masked down and greeted her with a smile despite clearly wrenching in pain. He was so affectionate the other people that also came over to assist thought them to be family. He gave her his pouch, and the words he spoke would be with her forever. “I was a refugee too, my wife and I, it will get worse before it gets better so don’t give up, take the pouch its yours”. He smiled and continued “my beloved Lucia gave up too soon, she just could not manage this life, but you are strong, I see me in your eyes so don’t give up”, and with that he closed his eyes. She felt his life force leave and so knew he was gone just like when her parents died.

AbiYah was so broken she did not even realize how subconsciously she gave her name and number to the paramedics. The ambulance’s flashing lights were like a parade taking him into an unknown eternity. She got home and sat down in her little warm apartment and was not surprised the hospital called to notify her of his passing. He had no next of kin on his hospital records so they informed her that his body would be sent to the makeshift crematorium for COVID positive deaths. His ashes would be kept for sixty days to be claimed and if not, it would be disposed of. Was this a peek at the future that existed for refugees like AbiYah?

The next morning she was awoken by a cramp in her neck from her curled-up position in the chair from the night before. At first she wondered if she had dreamed the memories that met her, but the little black pouch she was clutching said otherwise. She sat and timidly opened the pouch but then as if in a sprint darted to retrieve the little black notebook. The first page read:

“To My Dare Wife Lucia,

My choices brought us here to this country and your loyalty to stand by my side, in banishment from our homeland has kept me strong.

Please keep writing and drawing and never let the famous artist in you be quiet. Love your husband Gonzaga the Great.”

What followed were pages of poetry, doodles and detailed drawings with added titles from a different ink “That’s what he was doing all this time”, AbiYah spoke aloud to herself. Every time AbiYah thought of giving up, something would happen that felt like the universe saying, “you are not alone.” She sat for hours reading and looking through the beautiful images which all told a story of the journey of these two refugee souls trying to survive.

It was not until a week later that she looked through the rest of the contents of the pouch. The black notebook had filled her days with so much inspiration, it spilled unto the keyboard as she typed the outline for a novel. She found more documents about Mr. Gonzaga's life in Cecily Italy before his refugee plight and included in the pouch was an envelope with thousands of dollars. She counted and recounted for almost two hours and was shocked at the forty thousand dollars that laid in her lap. That evening she sat writing in her little black notebook. She wrote, “an old couple without children and a young woman without family crossing paths as refugees and together a legacy of art, literature, history, inspiration and money changes hands.” The smiles exchanged with Mr. Gonzaga aka Max comforted an old man and somehow brought life to AbiYah.

The next few months were filled with excitement as AbiYah had been contacted by several editors who had read a winning book outline she had entered in a competition. She chose a stocky humble Italian man reminiscent of Max and with him she works tirelessly to integrate Lucia’s poems and sketches into her book, ‘The Refugees’ Plight’. She was able to quit working and commit time to her book and with other photos and information she was able to get from Mr. Gonzaga’s apartment the excitement was justified. She claimed his ashes and placed them in storage with his personal effects for a future planned tripped to Italy. AbiYah was busy now and felt for the first time like she had found a cause to live for again. She fulfilled her father wish ‘to live to fight another day’. The fight was the same, but the strategy was different. She smiled as she looked over at the pile of small black notebooks she had bought. She even dared to dream of sharing this black notebook skill as a tradition with her own kids someday. Her soul took a deep breath not just for her, but for her parents, for Lucia who gave up, for Gonzaga who was heartbroken and for others who struggle every day to find hope in their lives as refugees.