Standing here on the banks, you can hear the sound of powerful river currents lapping against, and passing along the rugged Mexican shore line of the mighty Rio Grande, racing toward the Gulf. An oasis along the river’s edge of Southern Live Oaks and Texas Madrones creates a rustling symphony of leaves in the twenty-five mile per hour gusting winds fanning across the desert beyond, bathed in ninety-seven-degree temperatures, making the eighty-five-degree river waters almost seem refreshing.
Yet amid all of this beauty, instead of a landscape, rich in natural colors and sounds and scents, on this day it is the setting for the final moments of struggle for a young father and his nearly two-year-old daughter.
The father has been turned away at US Customs, and out of desperation for the welfare of his family, he will challenge this mighty river and risk everything to escape poverty, drug violence and rising murder rates of his home in El Salvador for a chance at a better life for his family in America.
His desperate plan is to first, take the little one who does not swim, across the river and place her on the American side of the river and safety, then to swim back across to do the same with his young wife, who is a weak swimmer and unsure of her ability to do this on her own. His will and his heart and determination are to see this through and begin living a dream he has shared with his wife for their future.
He begins with the child, he tucks her into his shirt and enters the cool, rushing water and immediately feels the power of the currents after wading in only waist deep, yet pushes forward toward the opposite shore, taking his time, resting and measuring his efforts to conserve as he slowly dog paddles and makes his way across and finally onto American soil. He rests, talks calmly with the infant and assures her that all is well and that she should stay where he leaves her while he returns for the young mother and brings her across and finally, they are all one once again. He re-enters the water from the American side and begins to swim back across to the Mexican shore.
He grows anxious as he nears the mid-point of the river, struggling against the mighty currents of the fast-moving waters, the energy to swim to safety and the shore, being sapped as the seconds of this moment play out.
The little one begins to cry, and also grows anxious, and does not understand why she is being left abandoned on an opposite shore, away from her mother as her father swims away, and she panics at the thought that they have come all this way to leave her in this distant land, she does not make sense of this, nor should she since she’s only a child and knows only the love of her family and the security of their presence near her.
The child leaves the safety of dry land and the Brownsville- US shore and enters the river after her father, and he’s struggling to fight the currents yet once again and bring his young wife across to safety and freedom on US Soil. He knows she is not a strong swimmer and will need his strength to help her cross safely, yet something’s wrong.
The young wife watches as her infant daughter re-enters the water and is almost immediately pulled under as the water deepens and the currents envelop her in their rhythmic meter, flowing toward the Gulf, and the wife cries out to the father who does not see. She motions frantically with her arms toward the opposite shore and the father turns in mid-stream to look and at once, sees the unthinkable taking place and knows he must reach his daughter within seconds to return her to the safety of the US shore. The infant’s head bobs in the deep, moving current as the father swims back toward her and finally, he dives under to find her and feels one of her legs and he has her now, firmly in his grasp and pulls her up to the surface.
The infant daughter gasps for air between sobs of terror and opens her eyes to see those of her father looking back, as he assures her, “Pequeño, está bien!”, “Little one, it’s okay!” He tucks her little head under his tee-shirt to allow his hands free to swim, but he is growing tired of constantly fighting the relentless river currents, constantly pulling him under and away from his efforts to swim for the Brownsville shore. His struggle to stay above water is growing harder as his arms ache from the strain and in a moment of weakness, the river pulls him under long enough for him to breath in river water instead of air and he begins chocking, no longer trying to paddle with his arms, but trying to find air to breathe where now there is only water, and the wife watches in horror from the Mexican shore as the tragedy unfolds before her, and she is helpless to alter the course of life in these precious seconds.
The young father cannot find air to breathe, and suddenly it seems, the need to struggle and swim against the river currents is gradually leaving his body, as his eyes are open and he still sees through the clear water, the bright blue, sun-filled sky overhead, and finally, as the seconds slowly pass, finally his open eyes no longer see the natural beauty overhead, and time stops. Life and consciousness and family and freedom no longer exist. It is over.
The wife collapses to the ground as she watches the river swallow her husband and daughter deep within its bowels, yet soon they rise above the currents and bob with the inevitable rhythm of waves, moving gently eastward toward the Gulf, and journey’s end.
The next morning searchers found them, a morning not unlike yesterday’s, full of hope and promise and a new life with any luck, but not for this young family, not now, not ever. They found them floating face-down on the Mexican shore line of the river, amid several empty, bright blue Bud-Lite beer cans. The father and infant daughter remained together, and the mighty Rio Grande could not separate them, even in death. They died as they had lived, clinging to each other, holding on to life and their dreams for as long as they were able. They had journeyed fourteen-hundred miles from San Martin to the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, and in the father’s last message to his mother back in San Martin, he had told her, “ Mama, I love you. Take care of yourselves because we are fine here.”