Once the blood red sky began charring clouds, so did our conversation, burning with unspoken emotion. Voice cracks and painful silence were all I could hear, but in describing her home, I could feel the strain of the memories Jaky Bruno, surgical technician and daughter of who I once called nou nou, French for babysitter, buried deep in her mind. She left her home at 12 and had never looked back since.

“I never went back, I never even wanted to visit, I had very bad memories, I had a very hard childhood, very hard, and so I never went back because I didn't want to bring memories back...that's the reason why I, I didn’t know how I was going to, I didn't want to remember anything from my childhood.”

You could almost feel the pain solidified in your side like a tumor in imagining what could have possibly been so traumatic, just imagine it. From extreme poverty to abuse, the possibilities are endless.

I asked Jaky if she could expand her words and clarify which memories of her
childhood, but she simply didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to remember. Instead, she likes to think about what has gone right, what has turned around.

“I will never go back. I like it here, if you take advantage of it, you can do a lot of things here, there are a lot of opportunities here.”

Jaky focuses not on trying to forget the past, but on what the future holds for her and for others. She says her message to all other considering immigrating is to do what’s right.

“So, if they’re going to come here, they’re going to do what they have to do, and not to give up because if you want it, it can happen.”