Keishla Rivera-Lopez

They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, but what if what you have isn’t really gone? What if it’s just not so readily available? I remember when my brother moved to California this summer. He always said it was going to happen and I didn’t believe him. Maybe, it was that I didn’t want to.

It wasn’t real until the day came I had to drive him to the airport. And, it wasn’t until this day that I didn’t realize how close I became with my older brother. My twin brother and I didn’t really attain the supposed telepathy twins do and my older sister was more like a second mother. It was so weird because I felt like I actually lost my brother, but he didn’t die or break up with me.

This Thanksgiving he visited New Jersey and became the object of envy with his glorious tan. Right before I had to take him to the airport my mother hid away in her room. I told her she had one last chance to say goodbye. But, was it really a goodbye, or a see you later? Did it matter what the reality was when your feelings were not going to be suppressed. Pain is pain.

After an hour long ride in the car which I spent savoring the last few moments my brother and I would share until January, we finally arrived at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY. It’s funny how we delusion ourselves and have hope that what is going to happen, will not happen. It’s like a test that you don’t want to take or didn’t study for. Just because you’re not prepared life isn’t going to intervene. So, here I was at the airport and I couldn’t look at my brother, instead I cried and gave him the most heartfelt hug I could.

At that moment, I thought about how airports are not only spaces where people wait for flights. They are also spaces for giving a temporary goodbye to a loved one. Airports are places where I feel overwhelming joy once my brother lands and feel immense pain once he has to go. My best friend isn’t around anymore and I have to get used to that. My entire drive home I thought about migration and people leaving their families. People do it every day. People have to say good bye to their loved ones everyday without the security of knowing when they come back…or if they will ever come back. My brother has the privilege of attaining a college degree and having the occasional comfortability of visiting home. Fortunately, his other home is in New Jersey (within the U.S.) Yet, many migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean leave their homes beyond countless national borders. How do people leave, endure, and persevere with that pain inside? They must really need to go, right?

What he told my mother stuck with me, “You did the same thing. You left Puerto Rico. You left your family for New Jersey. Migration is natural.” So, then I kept thinking about that… migration is so natural, yet it is frowned upon to certain groups of people..