“Saviors”

Lily Brecht

1975, Pearl River, China

The harsh creaking of the small wooden boat had all but lost its effect on Mei’s ears. It had become almost like background noise after nearly a week of strenuous paddling. Her family had sent her away for something they hoped would be a better life, but with every paddle, all Mei could think of was how much she wished she could be home.

There are many things seven-year-olds need, and Mei couldn’t imagine anything she could need more than her mother and father. It would have been impossible to leave if she had known the truth. That it wouldn’t be just a couple of days, or even months away from her family. But years. Eight years. Longer than her life thus far. A cavernous, swallowing, consuming, and nearly insurmountable amount of time.

The tiny, almost disintegrating boat had run out of food days ago, but hunger was something that Mei had become painfully used to in her short life. However, the others in the boat weren’t used to an empty stomach like Mei was and were becoming sick and nauseous. They worked as diligently as they could, switching off between scooping buckets of water out of the boat and paddling. But, at some point, she didn’t know when, the water filling the boat became more than they could scoop out despite how fast they were working. As the boat was beginning to fill, and the almost twenty people packed into the tiny boat were losing hope, a large metal ship was seen in the distance heading their direction. The sight renewed the crew’s hope, and they began carting out water with renewed ferocity. As their rescuers came to their aid, shouting to hurry onto safety, Mei noticed how one of the women turned pale when she saw how they looked at her daughter.

Mei didn’t understand why her mother had cut off all her hair before sending her away. But when night fell, she knew how grateful she was for its absence when their rescuers took the two girls who still had their long beautiful hair out of their mothers’ rooms, and into their own. Their cries echoed down the cold metal hallways keeping everyone awake. In the morning no one spoke a word of it, and the ship kept sailing on.

 I have always been moved by my mother’s stories of her past as a refugee leaving her home of China for a new one in America. Her stories are a collision of cultures, peoples, and shared pain. Reimagining them in this form helps me to understand and connect with the past that brought me to the places I exist in now.