A Rogue and Necessary Kindness

For a while, I knew where they were. The flags, three of them, that were received when my parents and my older brother became naturalized citizens. I don’t know where they are now. I never had one, because I was born here.

I grew up outside Rochester, N.Y., and today live near what is now Senator Keating Boulevard, also outside Rochester. Some time ago, I learned that Sen. Kenneth Keating changed my family’s life. He was the American ambassador to India at the time, and he helped my brother, who was then three and a half, reunite with our parents in America by expediting his visa. I heard parts of this story when other people were at my parents’ house. Sometimes it’s easier to tell stories with an audience.

A patient of my father’s in Rochester had asked him whether he had any kids. My father, a gastroenterologist, said, Yes, but my son is in India. We are waiting for his visa. And this patient felt moved to do something. She made a call. How did she know the senator? How many phone calls were made to reach him?

My father’s patient knew Amb. Keating or knew someone who knew him (Keating was from Rochester) and helped expedite the visa. My parents left my 11-month-old brother in India in 1967 when they came to the U.S. to work and study. They did not see him again until 1970.

It’s not unusual for parents and children to be separated in immigration: someone in the U.S. earning money, someone back home with the grandparents.

My mother told me once that my father would never ask for a raise. Did my brother get stuck in red tape because my parents did not know whom or how to ask or push? What are the consequences of believing that other people are already doing the best that they can? Of not understanding bureaucracy is meant to tire you out? Of not knowing another way around it? There is so much I don’t know.

My mother’s eyes would fill with tears any time she saw a baby. She’d left her infant son in India. Why didn’t anyone tell them that if they filled out the form to convert my father’s student visa to a permanent visa, they would not be able to go back to get my brother?

Forms aren’t meant to be easy. As long as I can remember, my father has said to me, You have no concept of time. I used to think it was unkind, but it strikes me now as accurate. You have to try harder. The thing about effort is the thing about pain. How do you know what someone else’s effort is? Or their experience of pain?

I have no way to measure or map this story, because I don’t know enough. I don’t understand this story’s hold on me. What is the moral of the story? Hope someone asks you about your kid and that they have empathy? And not only empathy, but that they know someone, and not only know someone, but will make a phone call on your behalf? You could call it grace. My parents might have assumed if you are doing your work and are a good person, things will work out.

Things did work out, but I don’t know how they would have worked out if my mother hadn’t been upset and missing her son and if my father hadn’t been upset that his wife was upset or upset himself and if the patient hadn’t picked up on it or hadn’t asked do you have children or hadn’t commented you look upset and if my father hadn’t answered honestly and said why.

I’m thankful to those who, when they hear something, say something. To those who, when they hear something, do something. I can’t find this patient’s name, but what’s not lost is this generous, gracious gesture, going out of your way to help an immigrant who is faltering, tangled in paperwork. Thank you to her and to Amb. Keating. Thank you to my father who told me enough of this story for me to get down the bones. Now I don’t know where those flags are, but I remember the importance of asking a good question, of being interested in others’ lives, of doing what you can do to help someone else, these rogue and necessary kindnesses.