Mommy Finger, Baby Finger

Departure day: June 1, 2018. I woke up both anxious and excited for what was to come. I had been preparing myself mentally and emotionally for over a month through prayer, dates with friends, time with Ali and with my family — and that night I would be flying across the country. I would be away from Ali for the longest time yet.

Ali hadn’t asked me much about me leaving until that day. Before getting out of bed, I stared at Ali who had been tossing and turning, and I realized she had a fever. Perfect timing. I called her doctor who told me to bring her in. When I got off the phone she was up and sitting on the couch waiting for me. I hugged her and she said, “Mommy, we need to talk.” I was surprised. Her tone told me she meant business. I tried not to laugh. She went on, “So tell me — why do you have to go to Johnson & Johnson?” I told her I had work to do out there if I wanted to graduate from school. It was the easiest explanation I could come up with. To which she responded, “Just don’t finish school.”

By the end of the day, Ali’s fever had gone away. My mom, Ali, uncle and aunt took me to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at 7 p.m. In the car, I scrolled through pictures my friend had taken of me just a few days prior in the middle of the Arizona mountain ranges. This is really happening, I thought. I’m going to Jersey.

“This way, mija!” my tia yelled inside the airport. “Aqui! Get in the line to check your bags!”

I whispered to my mom, “Does she have to yell?”

“You know your tia,” my mom said.

I did, in fact, know my aunt.

Now, she was yelling at the airport employee. “She is not going to New York, she is going to New Jersey!”

“Yes, ma’am I know,” said the airport employee. “She flies into Newark.”

“No, not New York! She is going to New Jersey!”

I explained that Newark was a city in New Jersey that sounded a lot like New York (well, sort of).

Once checked in, my family walked me to my gate. I remember my mom praying over me and telling me that this was my time to shine, before I started crying.

The next morning after arriving in Newark, I’d called my mom for help with a rental car to get to Somerset (which would cost me over $600). It was 6 a.m. and already I’d gotten lost at the airport and was going crazy. Eventually, I got my car and I was on the road to my new apartment for the next couple months in Somerset. I was mesmerized by how green New Jersey was compared to the Arizona desert. I rolled down my windows and felt a huge sense of relief. I was in for a new adventure.

I had oatmeal at a nearby Panera and scrolled through Instagram. I sat at a table next to a window by myself and looked up at the sound of a baby’s cry. Sure enough, there was a young mother with a baby waiting in line to order food. An older man stood behind her and smiled. I smiled back. He said hello and used it as an opportunity to small talk. Quickly, I realized, east coast men waste no time.

I arrived at my new apartment and got straight to work — unpacking and decorating with pictures, drawings Ali had made and gift from friends — to make it feel like home. It was still surreal to me. I woke up after a two hour nap, in a panic and sweating after dreaming that my daughter had been kidnapped. It was very clear the distance would be an enormous challenge. I was nervous.

Over the phone, my mom and my aunt promised Ali would be fine. As I sat in my kitchen that first night, journaling, I felt God’s presence. I could do this. Although I was nervous, I was grateful and I decided that whatever happened in New Jersey, it would be positively life changing. In my new message board my friend Arlin had given me, I wrote, “Fly Those Wings.”

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Life was never handed easy to me, but those challenges gave me character and backbone. I had spent most of my life seeing myself being challenged. I was misunderstood, bullied and betrayed by my own family. My father was abusive. As a single mother, I worked while going to school. Her father was inconsistent and unreliable. As a reporter, I was targeted by senior colleagues for being a “young and pretty” professional. So I was prepared to make this experience everything I had worked so hard for.