My father still keeps his American visa in his bedside table.
Visa No. 749. Embassy of the United States of America. Issued the 24th of August 1975. $4.50.
When my father landed in the Atlanta airport those years ago he didn’t know if his cousin lived in Atlanta or Atlantic City.
He had $200 to his name, a grocery bag full of clothes, and no English.
He knew his cousin had attended university though he had no idea which one so he visited them all, repeating his cousins name again and again as the doors closed around him.
Near dusk at Georgia State University he found a man, a janitor who was particularly sorry for him, who helped him flip through the yearbooks in the library looking for a face my father recognized. 1971. 1970. 1969. They looked until the library closed and my father was escorted to the university courtyard where he sat on a park bench where he would spend that night.
The janitor must’ve taken pity on my father when he saw him there all alone, and he called him back inside, reopening the library and sitting down to look through just a few more yearbooks. And there, in the middle of a leather bound book in a language he couldn’t understand, my father saw his cousin’s picture. The janitor found phone records and with his own quarter he dialed the cousin’s number on the payphone.
And it rang. And rang. And in those days there were no answering machines, and phones would ring forever if you had the time to wait.
And it rang
and rang
and rang
until
“Halo?”
And my father heard his cousin’s voice and the tears he’d been holding back all day poured down to the marbled library floor as he yelled:
“It’s Musbah! Musbah Eid!”
There are many strangers whose names I’ll never know who played a part in giving me this life. Thank you to the visa givers and to the angels dressed as janitors. And for your unending courage, Dad. Thank you.
