essay

Life after Loss Once a loss occurs within a family there is always a number of ways the family can get through their pain. A family can choose what role a loss is going to play in their lives. Either they can let the pain subside slowly or quickly get over it and move on, but I do not personally think one can truly accept losing a family member without some sort of grieving process involved. One family may choose denial, and resistance to let a loved one go, while another family may grief together to console one another. Once a family goes through a lose it becomes apparent that it can happen to anyone. “In the Land of the Free” is a story of mother Lae Choo, who is very resilient as she reacts to the American Customs Officers taking her “Little One”. Lae Choo is not willing or able to let go because her infant child does not have the legal papers to get him in the United States. She is instantly protesting the officers and protecting her child being transferred to Washington D.C by the two strange United States Customs officers. Every mother should feel a divine right to guard their child of any danger, so the period the government has her baby boy she breaks down but soon starts to ponder any way she can get him back. Him Hong, her husband describes Lae Choo saying, “She seems less every day. Her food she takes only when I bid her and her tears fall continuously. She finds no pleasure in dress or flowers and cares not to see her friends. Her eyes stare all night. I think before another moon she will pass into the land of the spirits.” (Eaton 806). Lae Choo weeps for a long time and can barely sleep with the thought of her baby boy not being in her arms every day and night. This pain pushes her to pursue her son by any means necessary. Lae Choo offers her prized possessions; earrings, buttons, hairpins, and even a ring her husband Hom Hing gave her all seem like exchangeable items for ultimately her “Little One”. This method of getting past pain