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Hispanic Link News Service
EL PASO, Texas — Nothing tears me up as thoroughly as Rodolfo’s cry of anguish in La Boheme when he realizes that Mimi has died. So much pain. So many regrets. A fitting finale to a full life.
Most of us will die at home or in a hospital surrounded by family or caring strangers. It’s not natural to die alone. Someone should be there to shed a tear and say our name for the last time. Someone with a warm touch to utter a prayer and a soft adios; someone with a familiar hand to send us away with a fond wish for the journey ahead where with an outstretched hand, La death, waits to greet us all. Needed is a final resting place where friends and family can visit, place flowers and remember.
I think about this as I sit in the comfortable church pew and listen to the priest bless the elegant coffin and intone the final prayers at the altar. “May the angels escort thee to paradise. May the choirs of angels receive thee with Lazarus who once was poor. Mayest thou have eternal rest. May perpetual light shine upon thee.”
This is not the case with the undocumented. They die alone in the desert. They die of heat stroke and hypothermia. They drown alone in river currents and they perish on isolated highways headed for unknown destinations.
They die in the middle of nowhere. They carry no ID and remain nameless in death. Not a fitting finale for a full life.
They cross the border to the north for many reasons. It’s not easy to sit idly by when there is so much need. They lack the basics, food, shelter, clothing and medical care.
These are almost unattainable for many of the poorest of the poor in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and other Latin American countries, and so they come. They leave with great sorrow but with great courage. They leave behind their families, their country, those things they love the most, and they go to the unknown with hope and deep
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