authorities agreed to follow the law, allow the family to present for asylum, and move to reclaim Ariel. One week after she crossed the border with his parents, my sister picked Ariel up in Washington, D.C., and drove him to the airport to reunite with his family. Ariel told her that he was afraid because he didn’t remember what his mom and dad looked like. When my sister pulled out her phone and showed him a picture, he beamed with joy, recognition, and relief. Minutes later, Ariel sprinted into his parents’ arms—ending ten months of excruciating separation. The video I posted of the airport reunion was haunting: both beautiful and utterly brutal. Reactions of gratitude and rage flooded in.
* * *
That afternoon, I stood in the hallway of my daughter’s school. Another mother approached me and said, “Can we talk?” Her tone made my stomach drop. “Sure,” I said. We stepped outside.
She began, “I’ve been following you for a long while, but I unfollowed you today.”
I said, “Okay. Sounds like you made the right choice for you.” I began to step away.
Nevertheless, she persisted: “With all due respect, I have to ask: Why don’t you care about protecting America as much as you care about protecting illegals? We follow the law; so should they. You know, I read that many of these parents know their kids could be taken from them. They know it, and they come anyway. I’m sorry, but I look at my daughter and I just think: I cannot IMAGINE doing that. I cannot IMAGINE.”
I looked at her and thought: Really? You can’t imagine risking it all—doing whatever it takes—to give your child a chance at safety, hope, and a future? Perhaps you’re not as brave as these parents are.
* * *
People use one of two tones when they say the words I cannot imagine.
The first tone is one of humility, awe, softness, gratitude. There is a quietness about it. A There but for the grace of God go I quality.
The second tone—the tone this woman used—is different. It is one of dismissal and judgment. There is a definitiveness about it. A Well, I would never quality. We invoke that tone like a spell, like a clove of garlic around our neck worn to distance ourselves from a particular horror in case it’s contagious. We look for a reason, for someone to blame, so that we can reassure ourselves that this horror could never, will never happen to us. Our judgment is self-protection; it’s a cage we put around ourselves. We hope it will keep danger out, but it only keeps tenderness and empathy from coming in.
What I realized, right there in the hallway, is that when people use the first tone, it is because they already are imagining. They are using their imagination as a bridge between their known experience and the unknown experience. They are imagining themselves into the other human being’s shoes, and that is making them tender because they can somehow—through the magical leap of imagination—see and feel what the other might see and feel. That’s when I realized that imagination is not just the catalyst of art, it’s also the catalyst of compassion. Imagination is the shortest distance between two people, two cultures, two ideologies, two experiences.
* * *
There is a little boy in my daughter Amma’s fifth-grade class named Tommy. Tommy never brings in his homework, so the kids never earn the class reward promised to them if they all comply. Tommy falls asleep in class repeatedly, and the teacher has to stop to wake him, which interrupts her lessons and makes her cranky. Amma is baffled by Tommy.
Amma walked in the door after school the other day, threw her book bag down on the floor, and said, “Again! He forgot his homework again! We are never going to earn our pizza party, never! Why can’t he just do what he’s supposed to do?”
Thankfully, I remembered the power of imagination.
ME: This is frustrating.
AMMA: I know!
ME: Babe, why do you imagine Tommy might not do his homework?
AMMA: Because he is irresponsible.
ME: Okay. Do you think that you’re responsible?
AMMA: Yes. I am. I always do my homework and I never fall asleep in class. I would NEVER do that.
ME: Okay. How did you learn to always get your homework done?
AMMA: You taught me to do it right after school. And you remind me every day!
ME: Okay. Do you imagine that Tommy has parents at home who can sit down