Wednesday February 22, 2017
The last time Sahara Abdullahi saw her son, he was barely a boy. He was baldheaded with smooth brown skin, as innocent as any 1 year old anywhere.
She was 23 when she said goodbye. It was the only way, she thought, she could build a life for him. They wouldn't have survived Somalia, and the Ugandan refugee camp where she'd spent seven years held little prospect of a life.
So she made the hardest choice she would ever face. She sacrificed her time with him as a baby to secure his future.
Most nights in America she dreamed about him, the boy whose smile she did not know. She called him every weekend. She told him they'd be together someday. Only 1 percent of refugees make it to America, she knew. But a mother has to hope.
She waited four years, she told the crowd gathered Friday inside the Portland International Airport. She clutched two silver balloons and eyed the arrivals gate.
"His flight is delayed," a Catholic Charities worker said.
Abdullahi's face fell. She had missed his first loose tooth and the day he started school.
"I can't wait any longer," she said.
Somalia has been embroiled in a civil war since the 1990s. In recent years, the east African country has been home to al-Shabab, one of the most violent terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Abdullahi's family fled in 2005. The lush Ugandan camp where they took refuge was safer than Mogadishu, but Abdullahi couldn't build a life there. School stopped after elementary. She'd never be a Ugandan citizen.
She applied to come to the United States a decade ago. Refugees call an approval the golden ticket. Of more than 21 million refugees worldwide, only about 75,000 a year make it to the United States.
Abdullahi wasn't a mother when she applied. But the vetting process takes years. By the time the United States agreed to take her, she had a baby she'd named Abdirahman.
But her approval did not include a child.
The choice was impossible. If she turned the United States down to wait for her son's acceptance, she might never win the golden ticket again. Both stood a better chance if she moved and sent for him -- family members are more likely to be approved.
She and the boy's father had separated, so her family took in her son. In 2013, She moved to Portland alone. She became a housekeeper and found an apartment in East Portland. She researched schools and planned to enroll. Two of her brothers joined her in 2015, but their presence didn't fill the hole.
"She calls me always and says, 'I dreamed about him last night,'" her brother Abdullahi Abdullahi said. "Sometimes it's nightmares. Sometimes it's good."
In January, a Catholic Charities worker called. After four years, the government had said yes. Her son would soon be on his way. Two days later, President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the country's refugee program for 120 days. The Catholic Charities worker called her back. The president's order meant her son could not come.
"She tried to be strong," her brother said. "She said, 'I will wait 120 days.' But it was very tough on her."
Their fates began to change when Washington's attorney general filed a lawsuit against Trump, calling the order illegal and unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee in Seattle, issued a judgment temporarily banning enforcement of Trump's order.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed his decision, increasing the chances that Abdullahi's son might make it.
But, Abdullahi soon realized, one part of the executive order would stand: Trump had announced he would decrease the number of refugees the country would accept this year, allowing in only 50,000 instead of the planned 110,000. That left millions vying for 18,000 spots.
Abdullahi cleaned houses and hoped. She slept little and ate less. Then, last weekend, Catholic Charities called to say her 5-year-old boy was coming.
Friday night, she wandered the airport silently. She stopped by a restaurant to buy a sippy cup full of juice. When Catholic Charities workers said another Somali man would be reuniting with his wife, she followed the crowd of volunteers to the arrivals gate.
The Somali man hadn't seen his wife in eight years, someone told her. He'd never met his son.
Seventy-five people cheered and cried as the man rushed toward his family. He wrapped his arms around his wife and clutched his son close.
Abdullahi pulled away from the crowd. She dug through her purse and pulled out the two photographs she had of Abdirahman.
"He had a little bit of hair, but they cut it short," she said. "My aunt said he loves playing."
Earlier that day, the resettlement agency had received a new photograph of the boy. At dinner, a Catholic Charities worker had shown Abdullahi the photo on his phone.
She grabbed the phone and stared. His tongue stuck through a hole where his two front teeth had been. He had become a real boy since she left. He had grown teeth and then lost them.
"Fifteen minutes!" someone said.
A Catholic Charities worker asked if she had a nickname for her son.
"Abdirahman?" she said.
"But what's his nickname?" the worker asked. "The name you call him."
"He doesn't have one yet," she said.
She handed the balloons to her brother and stood clutching the sippy cup with both hands. The crowd formed a semicircle around her. She didn't smile until the tiniest blue coat appeared through the glass doors.
"He's here," a volunteer said.
An escort held his hand as she led him through the arrival gate. He seemed to brace himself.
Abdullahi walked toward her son with both arms wide open. He leaned away, but she wrapped herself around him and kissed his face. Like boys everywhere, he wiped the kiss from his cheek.
People cheered and snapped pictures. The boy's eyes scanned the strange new world of people who knew his name. Abdullahi shielded him for a moment, tucked him into her body and kissed him again.
Her brother gave the boy the balloons and he grinned. For his mother, at last, the gap in his smile became more than a distant image.