My son's magic box

I went past the building with the restaurant. The same place where I had spent many, many hours hard working hours, and several months of my life.

The restaurant was situated slightly off center, a short way from the more lively streets. Though seemingly forgotten, it was popular with the residents, who lunched and dined long and well there on a regular basis.

To now once again be standing outside the restaurant was like traveling through time. It felt like it was only yesterday I was standing in the kitchen, doing the dishes hour after hour.

Those days I had my little three year old son with me all the time. He was such a sweet little boy back then. Well, he's still sweet, but has grown so tall that he towers high over me.

He sat for hours on end in a small cardboard box on the tiled floor of the restaurant kitchen, playing with the blue teddy bear he had been given by a kind nurse named Kerstin. She used to help us refugees who where under threat of deportation, outside her regular working hours. To the rest of the society we didn't really exist since we were more or less paperless.

We were just a few small and scared refugees living under that hanging Damokles sword that the constant threat of instant deportation means to people in our situation. Certainly we were in no way unique then, and sadly, nor today. There are always great numbers of paperless persons who have to work illegally in order to survive.

The restaurant that I went to every day with my son was rather small, but nicely decorated with small means. I worked long hours, but I can still remember how grateful I was to receive food and little money. But I also remember the constant nagging feeling of guilt inside for making my son spend so many precious childhood days inside a cardboard box in a windowless room.

I had fled with him over land and mountains, away from repression and beatings, in order to give him a better life. And now he was sitting in a box on the floor in a small restaurant in the north of Sweden, with a mother who was very jumpy and constantly terrified of deportation.

Some years later we did finally get our residence permit, and could once again walk with our back straight in the light of the day. I too got my Swedish high school credits, and eventually was admitted to Stockholm University.

It was time to move and I packed my belongings in some old cardboard boxes that were sitting empty in the living room waiting for their content.

As I stood there in the kitchen next to the living room, busy packing, I suddenly heard a happy little laugh, and a small voice that cried:

- Mummy, mummy, come now!

My little son was sitting in one of the boxes, his child face all smiles.

He said: - Look mum, I found my magic play box again!

For as long as I live, I will never forget that moment. The same box that brought me so many tears, anxiety and heaps of bad conscience was now a happy magical little world to my three year old son.

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