I Am Not Following Your Rules

My mother left her three boys in Trinidad. I was four years old living in a house with my grandparents, two uncles and my aunt, who walked me to school every morning.

My mother was in Canada preparing for us to arrive.

Get a job.

Keep that job.

Paperwork.

Find somewhere to live.

More paperwork.

Citizenship.

The process was supposed to take at least three years. Two years in, my mother stood defiantly in the immigration office. They told her she needed to wait. She told them she had waited long enough, that she had fulfilled their mandates. She wanted her children.

They tried to pass her off, tried helping her understand the process.

“There are rules,” they said.

They thought my mother was grandstanding, that they could placate her for at least another year. They didn’t know she didn’t care about their rules. She wanted her children.

They finally understood that she wasn’t leaving. She got her kids. She broke the rules.

A dozen years later, I’m standing in the delivery room waiting for my daughter to be born.