by Lori Qian
Well, when I asked, I got an answer. They wanted a birth certificate. When I explained again and again that I would never be able to get that, they said that he needed a notarized letter from the security bureau in his hometown stating why he didn’t have a birth certificate.
We had had more challenges with INS before getting this news. They had made a few mistakes, which had caused us a great deal of stress. All of their inquiries were minor but they added up to big headaches. One involved a formal letter from them to William informing him that this was his “final request” for certain documents. The letter claimed their office had been waiting since December for these documents—which was clearly impossible, since we had not even begun this application process until February. They also wanted proof that William had returned from America and had not overstayed his tourist visa. How about the fact that he was in your office twice last week!? I wanted to ask them.
I was so furious about all these mistakes on their part that one night I started typing a letter to INS informing them of their errors. That night, William and I had one of the most intense arguments we’d ever had. Neither of us had ever experienced that degree of stress, and it was as though we could barely breathe. We were working so hard to play by their rules and not only were we not winning the game, it now felt like the people responsible for making this decision were not playing fairly. In retrospect, I know these mistakes were unintentional, but at the time, in my exhausted and paranoid state, I felt there was a horrible plot to discourage us from pursuing this visa.
As William read what I wrote, he kept trying to convince me to change it, saying that I would regret using that tone with the consulate. I argued that they had made mistakes, and they needed to acknowledge that fact. He argued that they were the ones with all the power; I could correct them, but my tone was too sharp—I needed to be more humble. We sat there going back and forth, both of us so emotional and frustrated with the other, arguing about each sentence, until three o’clock in the morning. Then, finally—delirious with stress, exhaustion, and regret for having taken out our frustrations and fears on each other—we agreed on a letter with a more humble approach and sent it the next morning.
In the meantime, though, William had no choice but to go back to his hometown, back to the security bureau, to get this form stating why he was never issued a birth certificate. It was all too familiar. Was it just a year ago that I had flown back to Guangzhou from Wuhan for one piece of paper? Now William was heading the opposite direction for, again, one piece of paper. We were just sick about this. After all, we had just returned from there a month earlier after having spent the entire Spring Festival trying to get what the consulate required, and still it wasn’t enough.
William wrote the document in English and Chinese, explaining that in the place and time in which he was born, it had not been policy to file a record of birth. On a Tuesday night, he got on the train and headed all the way back to Huang Mei in order to get this piece of paper stamped at the security bureau.
That day, I simply wanted to stay home and cry rather than go to work. I was at my limit. Why was this so hard? I could not believe William was all the way up in Hubei province. I began to feel so bad for him that he had to go through all this in order to be able to go to America with me. It didn’t seem fair, and I could hear the tension in his voice as he called me from the security bureau.
“Hi, sweetie,” he said quickly. “I only have a couple minutes on my phone card but I need to double-check the English wording with you. . . .” Since there was nobody in Huang Mei capable of translating, he was doing this himself, and since this was our only chance, the words needed to be perfect. As soon as I had said his translation sounded okay, we got cut off. I didn’t get to tell him I loved him or to be safe.
As I went about my day at work, I tried to think of other things besides William, but it was of no use. All I could do was imagine each step of his journey and how many hours it would be until he was home with me.
He called me later that night from Wuhan. I felt much better after hearing his voice. The officials at the security bureau in Huang Mei had signed the document and William had turned it into the notary office in Wuhan. It would be ready the next day, at which time he would get on the train and come home.
I was so amazed at what he had accomplished and I loved him so much for going through all that. He was so matter-of-fact about it. He just knew that it had to be done and did it. Actually, that was always how he was. I was the one to get emotional and freak out over all the challenges that came upon us. I was the one to worry myself sick about all the things I could not control. I was always in a rush to get through the challenge so that we could breathe normally again.
William still is always the one to remind me that life is not like that. We don’t rush through the process to get somewhere with no challenges, because there will always be another one. He reminds me of the growth we have experienced since we met. Not too long ago, he asked me if I thought that growth would have been possible without the challenges. He never asks me these things in a condescending way; he does it gently, as if he really doesn’t know the answer himself. Of course, we both know that he does, but he is always willing to ask his not-so-patient wife to think with him in those terms. He has said time and time again that all couples have challenges, but we may experience more of them, and of different kinds, because of our different backgrounds and how hard we need to work to understand certain aspects of each other.
Also, because we are trying so hard to grow and develop, we must expect that some pain will come with that. If we were content to just be, and never try to improve, have new experiences, serve others, learn more, or do more, then indeed life would be easy. But then, asks William, what would our relationship be? Would our love for each other be at the level that it is? Would the bitter soup taste so sweet?
chapter 45
INS continued to make us jump through more hoops, but we eventually passed that first step. It was hard to believe that all of those tasks surrounding the birth certificate were only step one.
My friend, Sherry, held a small dinner party for us when we got the news of our INS approval. She had seen me the first night William left for Huang Mei to get documents and had listened to me patiently as I unloaded on her. I had tried that night to act like everything was fine but when someone looks in your eyes with their own kind and concerned eyes, it’s hard to hold back emotion. I had gone to yoga that night thinking it would get my mind off things, but seeing Sherry and feeling her hug had just made it all come out. I had made it through yoga but she’d come over afterwards and we’d chatted well into the morning. So now, when we got our INS approval, she was the one to say, “Dinner at my place.” We have really been blessed with some good and thoughtful friends who know when it was time for a celebration.
The next steps would prove to be less difficult than the first. We still had more paperwork and more forms to complete, but the main step would be the interview, during which time it would be decided if William would get the visa or not.
We had one more scare when the consulate asked for documentation from the Huang Mei security bureau proving that William didn’t have a criminal record, but it worked out. He was able to ask a good friend to help on that end so that we didn’t need to go all the way back in person. I was so amazed at the level of friendship William had established with his former classmates, and that after all these years people were still willing to help. Were it not for that classmate, who was still living and teaching in that small town, William would have had to take another trip back.
This friend had to go to William’s former principal at that countryside school we’d visited more than a year earlier and get a certain stamp on a certain piece of paper. Then he had to mail the paper to the notary office in Wuhan—the same office we had gone to at Chinese New Year and where William had gotten his “birth certificate” notarized. Because that man was now familiar with William, he did it.
Thi
s, to me, was just short of a miracle. In my experience, things just didn’t go that smoothly in China. This part of our process had been so efficient, so convenient, and so not stressful. We got the form and turned it in along with everything else— and a few weeks later, we got the notice saying that William’s interview would be June 16.
This was it! We actually had a date. That meant that all the paperwork we had turned in was acceptable, and that as long as things went well at the interview, this could actually happen.
Oh, and he had to pass a medical exam before the interview.
The medical exam was what had caused us so much worry almost two years before. We knew that with active TB, William would never be able to go to America. But now his treatment was complete, and although he would always have scar tissue in his lungs, he was no longer sick. This was so amazing in and of itself; we had been so caught up in everything else that was going on, and William had been so low-key about taking his pills and going to the doctor every month, that we hadn’t often stop to recognize those blessings. In fact, we’d done it only once every month, when he came home from the doctor’s office with a new X-ray.
That had been our ritual for months now. We would hold up his latest X-ray and compare it to the one from the previous month. Often, we didn’t see a significant difference between those two. So then we would compare that day’s X-ray with one from a few months back, and we could definitely always see improvement. The last thing we did was to compare it with the very first X-ray, the one we had gotten the first day he began treatment. That seemed so long ago now—and really, it was. As we compared those X-rays, we were very, very aware of how blessed we were.
That first X-ray was completely cloudy. His lungs were all white and it was almost impossible to see any black space in between the ribs. When you look at a normal X-ray, that is what you see—black space everywhere around the ribs. On William’s first X-ray, the cloudiness of the TB just blended in with the white of his ribs. We had to really look to find any black space. But as we looked at all the successive X-rays, spanning almost two years, we could see the increase in black space in each one. It was so wonderful. He didn’t cough anymore. He wasn’t sick.
So now we just had to hope that the consulate recognized this, and that William having had TB in the past wouldn’t keep him from going to America. We were so nervous about the health exam because the entire front page of the form was all about TB. Clearly, they wanted to be careful about this disease; we understood that, but we hoped they would see fit to let William in since his TB was no longer active.
Once we were in that hospital going through the process, we felt again like we were back at square one. Most of the tests were routine and William moved right through them, but there was one part—the spitting part—that would prove to be our newest nightmare.
His X-ray showed that the TB had gotten better, but he still needed to prove that it was no longer active. The way to do this was to bring up phlegm and spit into a cup so they could analyze the sample. He needed to do this three times, but he could not do it even once. You know the gesture I’m talking about—the one where a person makes that horrible hacking sound as they bring phlegm up? It is disgusting, of course, and William had never done such a thing in his life. Even that day, as his immigrant visa depended on it, he couldn’t do it. He tried—God knows he tried—but all he could bring up was spit, and that wasn’t good enough.
So he had to go back the following Tuesday. We practiced until then. We bought honey, which we thought would help him. I didn’t really know how to do this, either but I tried to learn so I could help him.
So there we were, sitting in our little apartment desperately trying to learn to hack up phlegm. Again, I was asking myself if it was really worth all of this to go to America. William was so stressed, as he knew this was the last step. Everything we had done would be for nothing if he couldn’t hack something up three times at the doctor’s office. The pressure he felt was almost unbearable, and of course we couldn’t share this with anyone. A few colleagues knew he’d had the interview and everyone just assumed he’d pass the medical exam. Only we knew there was a really good chance he wouldn’t.
He went Tuesday and stayed at the hospital the whole morning. Nothing happened. Nothing would come up. I thought of how ironic this was. Chances were, if he had had active TB, it would have been easier to do this. Clearly, he was a healthy man who couldn’t manage it. He called to let me know he couldn’t do it and then he had to try again the next day. Now it was going on the fourth day that he would be late for work due to these appointments, and because he didn’t want to discuss the details with his boss, all he’d been telling him was that he had medical appointments for the consulate—not exactly a lie, but William still didn’t feel comfortable with it.
We tried everything. William even went to his former doctor, the one who had treated him through the TB, and asked his advice. That doctor gave him some medicine that was meant to sort of loosen up anything in the chest, making it easier to bring up. But William still needed to somehow learn this movement, this action, of bringing something up from his chest and spitting it out.
Finally, on the fifth day he would have to miss work due to this, he told his boss. Brady was also a friend from church and William had been feeling incredibly guilty not letting him know why he was missing so much work. Once Brady knew what the problem was, he wanted to help. That night, he came over and tried to coach William some more.
The three of us were in our apartment, trying to hack in order to help William. Brady and I were yelling, “Come on, that’s too wimpy. Come on, bring it up, let’s go!!”
What anyone walking by our place must have thought, I have no idea, and I could not have cared less, because William finally got to a point where something would come up. We shouted for joy. It wasn’t quite a full-fledged hack, but it was more than just spit.
That accomplished, William asked Brady to give him a blessing. I thought this took a great deal of faith on William’s part. Brady was prepared to give a blessing, as this was not an unusual custom in our faith.
He first asked me to say a prayer. We all sat, bowed our heads, and folded our arms, and I prayed that William would be able to do what he needed to do to pass the test the following day. I expressed thanks and asked that no matter the outcome, we would feel peace. We all said “Amen,” and Brady then took his place standing behind William, as William sat. Brady placed his hands on William’s head, we again all bowed our heads, and Brady offered a blessing, which is really just a special prayer again asking for God’s help, but specifically meant to help William feel sort of an added dose, if you will, of peace. We again all said “Amen.”
This is a ritual that my father performed many times for us growing up, any time we were sick or suffering emotionally. It’s always brought me peace; I hoped it would do the same for William.
I had taken the next day off to go with William. I had already been approved to have this day off, since it was June 16, the day we were supposed to have had his interview. That was now impossible, but since I had the day off, I wanted to accompany him. As we were crossing the street to get the bus to the doctor’s office, Brady drove by. He gave us the “thumbs-up” sign and a big smile. We smiled back and gripped each other’s hand tighter. We looked at each other with a look of determination. We would do this.
When we arrived at the doctor’s office, they recognized William right away and sent him straight up to the lab. He knew what he had to do. We had found out the previous Thursday that they had counted two of the samples he’d given, so he only needed one more. He went into his little booth and as the lab technician watched, he began the process. I could see him and I was talking to him, even though he couldn’t hear me.
“Come on, sweetie, you can do this. You have to do this. Come on, I believe in you!”
As I noticed how hard he was struggling, I knocked on the glass and gave him suggestions—”Maybe stand up, really breathe deeply, sw
eetie.”
He gave me a look that at once said, “I love you and I appreciate your help” and also “You are really making it worse by putting this pressure on me so please, please go sit down and let me try to spit in peace.”
I could take a hint. I went and sat down. I prayed silently instead of shouting my helpful tips at him.
When he walked out of the room and handed the cup to the technician, the technician began filling out a piece of paper and asked William for his passport. Okay, this was it! I knew right then we were okay. Why would he ask for his passport otherwise?
Sure enough, he handed William the paper indicating that three acceptable samples had been given and that the results showed no active TB. William’s smile covered his whole face. I, of course, started crying. When we walked out of the office, we stood outside for a few minutes, holding tightly on to each other’s hands and thanking God again and again. We had passed! We were finished with this step.
We called Brady to tell him the good news and then we began the next step: trying to get an interview.
Our June 16 interview had been cancelled since we were still in the process of trying to spit at that time. Trying to get a new appointment was a confusing and stressful process. We were told by the doctor’s office that they had informed the consulate and that we should not attend that interview since the medical portion was not yet completed. They said we should email or phone the consulate to get the new appointment. But we emailed and didn’t hear anything. We couldn’t get through by phone.
Finally, we went to the consulate and they gave us an interview date for the following week. This was a surprise—so easy. I was glad we went, because the doctor’s office had not communicated anything about our situation to the consulate. If we had waited for them to contact us, we would likely still be waiting.