The morning of our visitation storms with high winds rolled through and shook me awake. It was around 3:00am when I started hearing the tornado sirens go off. My first thought was, "This is it. I'm going to die alone." I groggily rolled over and opened a weather app. All it said was "severe thunderstorm warning", although the wailing of sirens persists. I turn on the TV, the news tells me the same thing. I snuggle back with my Cheshire cat and slowly doze off again. I abruptly wake up from some sort of dream at 5:00am, my alarm is set for 5:20. I close my eyes for a few more min. It seems like as soon as I close them my alarm goes off. At this point, I am acclimated to being sleep deprived and starved. I roll out of bed to get dressed, get my protein shake and tea made. "Actual" food is not palatable and I can not stomach it from the stress. I have time to run to the gas station and fill up before I make the long drive to Alvarado. The drive is dark and uneventful. So much so that I arrive in the sleepy town at 6:50 instead of closer to my needed 7:30 mark. Trying to burn some time I stop at a gas station and use the restroom. Unlike when I left Plano the gas station was bustling. People everywhere dressed in derelict blue jeans that appeared to have been worn for 12 years with no actual sign of laundering. Also, in case you were wondering the mullet is not extinct, it is alive and well in Venus Texas. They should re-brand their sign to say "Home of the Mullet". I am completely thrown off by all this energy this early in the morning. People in my office stroll in anywhere from 8-10am. Most of my coworkers would still be asleep or barely rolling out of bed at the time these people were up hitting the round running. I sigh... it's too early. I see another girl in the bathroom, she is Hispanic and dressed well, full hair and makeup. She was crying and trying to not let her makeup run as a friend consoled her. I think to myself, "I bet she is here for the same reason I am. She is far too well dressed to actually live in this shit hole". I think nothing of it though because I am tired and I make the short walk back to my car. I sit for about 15 min playing on Facebook and trying to keep my mind busy. As long as I can focus on something else surely I can keep myself from crying.
I arrive at the facility. The nice black lady at the gate, whom I complimented the day before, jokes with me but tells me I can't be on property until 7:30am. So I have to turn around and park on a little side street close to the facility until I was allowed in. I sleepily get out of my car and make the rocky treacherous walk to the facility. I say treacherous because there are potholes everywhere in the crude "guest parking lot". If I go down and twist my ankle I am for sure a goner to be picked over by buzzards, if there even are any out here. Maybe they don't live in these parts, maybe the buzzards have better taste.
I go inside and am met by a smiling woman at the desk her name is Mendoza I believe. She had to take my ID and fill out info. She asked how old I was, I told her and she said "me too!". It was friendly banter that I'm sure she does with everyone. Trying to make the best out of peoples bad situations. Let me make it clear that the people that work at the facility are not the enemies. They have been exceptionally kind to me and quick to respond. They are just here working a job closer to home. The real enemy is our immigration policy. That is neither here nor there. I finish filling out my paperwork. Soon I will get to see him, hug him, smell him and just take everything in. This is what we have both been waiting for. They tell me to go into the visitation area, I walk in and my heart sinks. The room is large enough for 6 stalls. Each stall has a phone on the wall and a metal seat. You are not permitted to sit on the counter that will terminate your visit immediately. Or at least that's what the sign says that is hanging on the wall of my stall. It mocks my idea that I would have gotten to really see him. While waiting all I can think is that this is what they treat them like, criminals. They lack humanity in the utmost respect. They are simply numbers in a line, cogs in the machine. I look at the thick glass that is there to separate us. I see the hand prints of previous loved ones who have craved some form of closeness to whomever has been taken. There are large prints mixed with small. Peoples children realizing that there father, mother, etc may not be coming home. This tugs at my heart strings and I start to quietly cry when I think about both my own and others pain. I notice the girl from the restroom at the gas station is two stalls down from me. I feel almost like I need someone to high five because I had a feeling she was coming here. However, celebrating someone else's misery is not something I want to do. All I want is to see Cesar and know he is okay.
I see people coming! Cesar is at the front of the line and I can see him through the window!! He looks tired. His hair is disheveled and unkempt and his cheeks are scruffy from overgrown hair. He is wearing his wedding ring because it was the one piece of jewelry he could keep on. His outfit is confusing, looking more like ill fitting nurse scrubs. It is blue with "ICE DETAINEE" in large white letters across the back. As if to warn people of the danger associated with someone who was brought here as a child. His ensemble is completed with a Blue jean fleece lined jacket and orange jail sandals. He sits down we both pick up our individual phones. The cruelest game of telephone beings. I start to cry and so does he. We miss each other we are both scared and it's hard to contain emotion when there is so much involved in the situation. I promise him that when I get to work I will do my best to figure out the marriage license problem. We talk for an hour before we are separated again. I leave in tears, the whole thing is an emotional roller coaster. I want to help and I am left again to find some way some how to make things work.
