Silence

In some countries, between November 1st and 2nd, people celebrate the Day of the Dead; a time to remember and to honor those who are gone.

I haven’t lost many relatives: my paternal grandmother, my two maternal grandparents, and two uncles. Losses scattered over more than twenty years. Yet I think about death often. It wasn’t always this way. It began when I emigrated from the Dominican Republic to the United States.

I was born in the U.S. but raised in Santo Domingo. At sixteen, I returned again to New York. I was older then, more aware. That was when I began to fear not death itself, but what it leaves behind: distance, emptiness, goodbyes without return dates.

For years, until my mother came to live with me in the US, I feared she might die while I was far away. I dreamt of her death and woke up trembling, breathless, my heart pounding. It was a quiet kind of anxiety, the kind that waits for random moments of silence to steal your peace.

The thought of an immigrant leaving their country without knowing if they will ever return breaks something inside me. In my case, as a U.S. citizen, I could always visit, but I think of those who cannot, the ones who leave mothers, children, and friends behind, with no promise of reunion.

I remember one of my former students who left Colombia in 2006 and has never been back. He lives here with two aunts; his mother is still there. More than twenty years have passed since they last saw each other. I imagine what it means to hold that absence, unable to set it down, carrying it like something unwanted yet inseparable; a quiet pain that becomes part of your new human experience.

No one talks about that, about what an immigrant must give up to chase a dream, or simply to survive. About the things distance steals from you: a hug, a routine, a familiar voice that no longer sounds the same through a phone line.

When I came from the Dominican Republic, there was no WhatsApp or social media. Staying connected was a privilege. Many learned to keep quiet. Immigration teaches you to live with silence, to not complain, to be grateful even while carrying the quiet ache of not knowing if you will ever see your loved ones again. Surviving in a constant state of ambivalence, between faith in a possible reconnection and the slow grief of missing someone who is still alive.

No one speaks of that silence, but many of us carry it, as another offering on the altar of those who are still alive.