I vividly remember watching my dad’s eyes turn to saucers. “Trish,” he said lovingly but unmistakably stern, “You have to say something or they’re not going to let you go back home with us.” While I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, I did know that for me, opening my mouth was out of the question.
From the time I was cognitively able to speak, I didn’t. I was a painfully shy child who learned to send my messages through my mother as interpreter. I remember it happening most often on Sundays when the sweet, older church ladies would come up to me and ask me how I was or any other manner of simple, benign questioning. My eyes would drop to the floor and I would hold out with silence. And when pressed, I would slink behind my mother, pull her down to my level, and whisper the message into her ear so that she could interpret for me. Because if there was one simple thing I knew, it was that I was not going to be delivering any verbal messages on my own.
That’s how I came to be in front of a customs officer at the Houston Airport.
It was Christmas of 1975, when my parents took my three brothers and me to Guatemala for the holiday. My father, who was an OB/GYN at the time had had an especially complicated case at work; a high-risk delivery. It had been a situation where the mother and baby’s lives could have been in jeopardy if not for my father’s skillful work in the delivery room. And in those days, when he had his own practice and before managed care and strict insurance payments, my dad would on occasion accept trades for delivering babies. In this particular case, the show of gratefulness and thanks was the use of a lake property at the scenic Lake Atitlan in Panahachal, Guatemala. My dad happily took the patient up on her family’s gracious offer, packed up the Downings to spend the winter holiday on the lake.
By all accounts it was an rustic, yet exotic family vacation. When I look back, it is a special memory for me because it was the only vacation I can recall going on before my parents divorced; not counting the weekend getaways we spent at our mountain home in Winter Park, Colorado.
The trip was, in the eyes of a five-year-old, a big hit even though I had no idea where on a map I had actually been, nor why we had gone there. But it was a joyful and satisfying family experience.
The home we were offered for our stay was actually a lean-to; a modest structure with no running water and had only the cutouts of the windows and entryways, no actual glass or doors sealing it from the elements; it was a true open-air structure. The view from the balcony was nothing short of pristine, overlooking a crystal blue lake, which would double as our bath, shower and swimming hole. Next to the main house were sleeping quarters where the four of us children slept just a stone’s throw from our parents.
We spent our days wandering among the locals at the town villages and markets. Of course, we stood out as tourists, my very American-looking family with fair skin and my older brothers who continuously took opportunities to practice their broken, high school Spanish. But, If anyone could more closely resemble the locals, it was me, with my deep mocha skin and dark hair. As a biracial, adopted child I didn’t resemble my family. Standing next to my brother Greg, who is closest to me in age, it would be hard for a stranger to connect his straight hair, spun gold, with my tightly curled mahogany afro. But despite our very different looks, we were kids, siblings and best of friends.
Aside from the markets we visited, we spent our time playing in the lake. My brothers were all swimmers. Sam and Andy were both on the high school swim team and Greg swam for the summer club. I was still a swimmer-in-the-making, so I had to spend most of my time close to the lakeshore in a shallow cove in front of our vacation home, while Sam attempted to stroke across the lake with my dad paddling in a boat beside him; an undertaking he now admits was a goal much bigger than he was prepared for or able to take on.
On Christmas morning, we awoke and went to join our parents in the main house to open our presents. I remember vividly my gifts because they were two of the best I had ever received. First was a pair of toe socks. This must have been all the rage in the 70’s I imagine, because I remember the feeling of having died and gone to heaven. Looking back, I now wonder why anyone would want to take the time to painstakingly get each toe into its own little compartment at the bottom of the sock, but as a six-year-old, the novelty was a thrill. The second gift I received was one I had picked out from the JCPenny catalogue which Greg and I had literally scoured from front to back, hundreds of times, in the month preceding Christmas. It was my first watch, which pictured Lucy from the Peanuts gang on the face and came with three different colored watch bands.
Thinking back on that trip, gives me the smiles and satisfaction of a favorite childhood memory, but the most hair-raising part of the trip happened when we arrived at customs at the Houston Airport. My parents showed their passports, but as children we didn’t have or need official documentation. As we moved together in our close family unit, we caught the eye of a customs agent who apparently saw that there was something that didn’t match up. After having spent ten days in the sun, my brothers were more blonde than usual and my skin was the dark shade of milk chocolate. Further, the agent couldn’t connect how I could belong to the fair-skinned woman with auburn hair, who was holding my hand and leading me through the airport. No one in their right mind would put us in the same family, especially in 1975, before it was common to see white American families adopting children from other races.
We were immediately stopped for questioning. The officer confronted my father about my presence, believing he was trying to smuggle me out of Guatemala and into the states. My father had to explain that I was adopted and biracial; of African American and Caucasian descent.
When the customs official still didn’t believe him, my dad turned to me and said, “Honey, can you talk to this man and tell him your name?” And, as with other requests for my comment, I clung to my mother and tugged on her sleeve so that I could enlist her translation services. That, of course didn’t work because this intimidating man wanted to hear it straight from me. He wanted to confirm that I spoke English and had the same surname as my parents IDs, as it was the only way without documentation to prove that I might actually belong to this family.
When I wouldn’t say my name, my dad said, “Well can you tell the man where you live? Give him our address.” Nope. Nothing. Not having it. The words were caught in my mouth, as I looked up at the man in what seemed like a giant trooper style hat with a demanding, scrunched, red face underneath.
Finally, an exasperated dad explained the urgency of the situation. “Please tell this gentleman something. Our phone number? You have to say something or they’re not going to let you go back home with us.” At this point even my brothers were becoming uncomfortable and also chimed in to encourage me. Go ahead Trish. It’s okay. C’mon and say something—PLEASE! They pitched in.
Finally, as the tension around me escalated, I found the faintest voice within me, that allowed me to exhale the numbers 3-7-7-2-0-7-5. And those were the lucky seven digits that got me out of Guatemala and back home with the rest of the Downings.
