PAINFUL LESSONS
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PAGE 1
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The young woman could not help but think how lucky she was as she looked into a beautiful, blue sky above the hill in front of her. The bright, clear day certainly did not match her dark mood nor her uncertain fate, but it did make her lonely wait much more tolerable, as it was abnormal for spring in her college town where overcast skies were standard. It also allowed her to leave the train platform where she had endured the suspicious glances of those arriving at the train station and to stand in the gravel a hundred feet up the tracks. Just months before people from the nation of her parents’ birth had plunged the U.S., the nation of her birth, into war with a sudden morning air attack.
Since, she had to grown to expect strangers to narrow their eyes at her due to her membership in the ethnic group of her country’s new enemy. Immediately following the attack she had wondered if narrowed eyes would be the worst she could expect. Today, a call from her brother, Ray, had confirmed again that it was not.
Her initial fears after the attack were realized when the FBI picked up her father to be held as an enemy alien for an unknown time in an unrevealed place. Then, on the morning of her wait at the train station, her brother informed her that her mother and 15-year-old sister too were being detained and moved by train from her hometown, through her college town, to be held somewhere to the south. He did not know when they would pass through and recommended she stay at home.
But with the same spirit that had gotten her through the last months, she ignored his advice. Instead, she waited hours at the station in hopes of seeing the train and possibly even her family. As another train approached, she noticed first the military guards looking out from between each car, and next a few familiar faces peering out from behind the windows. Tears began falling as she waved and hoped that her mother or sister could see her. But before she spotted them, the train passed and disappeared and she was again alone, both beside tracks and in the town.
As she walked back toward the platform, after glancing back at Skinner’s Butte, she looked to a sign that read “Welcome to Eugene, Oregon” and wished it were true for her.
Since, she had to grown to expect strangers to narrow their eyes at her due to her membership in the ethnic group of her country’s new enemy. Immediately following the attack she had wondered if narrowed eyes would be the worst she could expect. Today, a call from her brother, Ray, had confirmed again that it was not.
Her initial fears after the attack were realized when the FBI picked up her father to be held as an enemy alien for an unknown time in an unrevealed place. Then, on the morning of her wait at the train station, her brother informed her that her mother and 15-year-old sister too were being detained and moved by train from her hometown, through her college town, to be held somewhere to the south. He did not know when they would pass through and recommended she stay at home.
But with the same spirit that had gotten her through the last months, she ignored his advice. Instead, she waited hours at the station in hopes of seeing the train and possibly even her family. As another train approached, she noticed first the military guards looking out from between each car, and next a few familiar faces peering out from behind the windows. Tears began falling as she waved and hoped that her mother or sister could see her. But before she spotted them, the train passed and disappeared and she was again alone, both beside tracks and in the town.
As she walked back toward the platform, after glancing back at Skinner’s Butte, she looked to a sign that read “Welcome to Eugene, Oregon” and wished it were true for her.