Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [129]
The following story is of a refugee who falls in this last category. My work with Chia was to help her build attributes of resilience and to find a moral center. I helped her setde in our town and make connections with both her ethnic community and our American one. Over the course of our relationship, Chia developed a stronger identity and skills for coping with our complicated country.
THE LOST LADY
Chia, a sixteen-year-old Laotian girl, was sent to me by her high school nurse because she was not sleeping well and seemed depressed. She'd been coming into the nurse's office and talking for hours and the nurse felt Chia needed an adult who had time and attention just for her.
Chia was pretty in the way most Laotian girls are pretty—small and slim with shiny hair and delicate features. At first, she was shy with me, but once she relaxed, she was a nonstop talker. She had a thick accent and sometimes I had to slow her down and ask her to repeat.
Chia began our first session by complaining about lower back pain. I suggested swimming, but she said, "Laotian people don't swim." I suggested she ask a friend for a back rub, but she said, "I have no friends, Miss."
It became clear that while Chia complained about her problems, she didn't want to accept help. When I offered her suggestions, she was oppositional. So, I resolved to stop suggesting ideas and just try to understand her.
Chia's mother had died shortly after she was born. She'd been cared for by an aunt who had also died. Chia and her father had left his mother behind in Vietnam and come to America five years ago. She was learning English, but her father wasn't. He worked as a night watchman at a power plant and Chia cooked and cleaned for him. She said, "When my father comes home he is tired. He watches television and Ms asleep."
Chia and her father had high utility and grocery bills and could barely live on his salary and Chia worried about her grandmother's high cholesterol and blood pressure and about her father's chronic cough. She had nightmares that both her grandmother and her father had died. She said, "Then, Miss, I would be all alone."
I asked gently if she was lonely now.
"Yes, Miss." Chia looked at her hands and for a moment was silent. I asked her about school clubs. She said, "I must go right home and cook for my father."
"Do you and your father have Laotian friends?"
"No. My father is very tired. He doesn't want to spend money. It's better if we are just alone."
I gently noted, "Everybody needs friends."
She pondered this as if it were a truly novel idea. She said quietly, "I am afraid if anyone likes me they might die."
I said, "Let's talk more about that."
Chia lived in a world without relationships. Except for her father, her distant grandmother, and a few kind teachers, she was deeply alone. She had little understanding or empathy for others and few ways to attract others' interest. She was fearful of closeness because closeness meant loss. She'd lost touch with most of her Laotian world, but she hadn't connected to much in our town.
She was struggling to decide when to be Laotian and when to be American. She seemed very traditional in her behavior and beliefs, and yet she dressed like an American girl. Because of her English, she had responsibilities in her family very unlike those of a traditional daughter. She helped her father with everything, including his taxes, his bills, and his INS paperwork.
Chia's life was an odd combination of sad, stressful, and uneventful. I remembered the Jay Haley technique of turning tragedy into musical comedy. I couldn't go that far, but I decided a nickname might give Chia some identity and some hope. I said, "For now, I am going to call you The Lost Lady. That is the name of a beautiful young woman from a book by a famous Nebraska woman named Willa Cather."
She looked at me with interest and asked "Why do you call