Saturday, May 15, 2010

The worst day of my life: my mom gets arrested and DREAM family passes on


“Las Tres Muertes,” the three deaths. Ofelia Esparza says that in life we all go through three stages of death: the day we die, the day we are buried and the day we are forgotten. She said that the worst death a person could go through is dying and not being remembered for who they were and how they lived." 

I think today might possibly be the worst day I have ever faced in my entire life time. And I'm not being dramatic. Earlier in the day, my mom was arrested by local police because she sells tamales. She's a street vendor. She and my aunt have established their spot and tamales for the last two decades. People know them and love them, that's why they've been able to sell for more than 20 years. Even when my mom moved away for two years, people would ask me about her and joked that they missed her tamales. When she finally did return to her spot, everyone came back, as if she was never gone.

At the same time, I got home after work today only to find out through twitter and facebook that Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix have made the transition into the next life. I wanted to believe that it was another Tam, not the one I knew. But as I kept reading more and more it started to sink in that it was her. The Tam that inspired me to do the work I do for the DREAM Act. The same Tam that I first heard about doing all these amazing things with all the other UCLA IDEAS folks way back in the day. They inspired me to continue on and fight. I met Tam a few times, I told her about my blog and she said she would check it out. I was star struck the first time I met her. I was like, "It's Tam !!." It's a sick joke that they died in a car accident.


Even with all my understanding of life and death, we are all human and we all make connections with each other. When those ties are broken, it's only natural to mourn. Sometimes I think that people are so conditioned to mourn, that we forget that death is only the beginning of life. I know that there are others worlds beyond this one. I have ancestors watching over me every day, guiding my life and protecting me from harm. I believe in them and trust them. I will focus my energy and prayers to all of my friends he knew Tam on a sister level. She touched and inspired hundreds of lives. No one can replace her. For the entire day all I have felt within my body is powerlessness. Powerless to help my mom while she was in jail for a few hours, and powerless to help my friends who are going through something that I would never wish on my worst enemy. I'm skipping work Monday to go to UCLA and be there with everyone. I may not be able to call Tam and Cynthia family, they were DREAM family and that is nothing that can ever be broken by anyone or thing. Till we meet in the next life.   


A Dream Deferred. from Jeesoo Park on Vimeo.