We all have had that one neighbor who keeps their yard immaculate. Sometimes we might be a bit envious, wonder whether they’re super competitive or simply just love having their hands in the dirt. My neighbor’s front yard has always been an oasis, and the backyard even more tranquil. 

That’s why it was so shocking when I noticed one day while pulling into my driveway, that her plants were dying.

It had been a while since I’d seen her outside with her adorable grandson, she hadn’t returned my text messages, and despite trying to not be nosy—I was concerned. 

I thought back to about a year ago, when she told me that if she disappeared one day, she had been deported. At the time, I laughed, thinking she was joking. But she was not joking and told me that she was a refugee, brought to the U.S. from Laos when she was just six years old. 

My neighbor attended American school, was raised in Michigan with her parents and siblings, and even fell in love with a Michigan native before they decided to move their family to the South Carolina lowcountry for a slower way of living. The South is where she found peace and some quiet and solace in planting, nurturing and tending to the garden oasis I looked forward to seeing before I turned into my driveway.

She explained that as a young adult she got mixed up with the wrong man, who committed a crime and convinced her to take the fall—as she was a young woman who would not suffer the same penalties. But she did.

The legal system failed her and despite being advised by a public defender to plead guilty to eliminate serving time as she was a young woman and more likely to get a slap on the wrist, she was sentenced to prison and served time. Thirty years later, this felony conviction haunted her.

Despite being sentenced and serving time in jail, she has been an outstanding community member. She raised a family, married a citizen, and worked as hard as anyone I know. This woman is a true hustler in the best sense of the word. She was a good neighbor that cared for my family. 

None of that would stop her from being detained by ICE during a routine monthly immigration check-in last summer. That was the beginning of her family’s nightmare.

According to my neighbor, who I am thankfully able to keep in touch with via What’s App, and her husband and family across the street, she was held in Georgia during her monthly check-in. That trip to the office was the last time she was free in America. For months, she was detained and shipped around to various ICE facilities until finally being sent back to a country that was foreign to her.

Imagine being told to go home, but home is anything but. You don’t know the language, you have little to no family or friends, and no place to go. Dropped off in a country that is just as unfamiliar to you as it would be for any one of us who had never been there.

If this sounds like a bad movie, it is worse, because this is my neighbor and so many others’ realities. 

Imagine how many of our neighbor’s plants are dying that we don’t even know about because we never got to know our neighbors in the first place.

Is your community close? Do you know your neighbors in the apartment next door, across the yard or your block? Would you notice if their plants were dying?

The tragedy in my neighbor’s story is that she is only one of thousands with a similar, or worse story. 

My hope is that we all remember what community truly means, no matter where we live or where we might have been born—we are each other’s neighbor and should act accordingly. 

I met my neighbor by extending an in-person thank you as she and her husband often assisted my elderly mother before I moved in from 1,000 miles away to care for her. I asked if we could exchange phone numbers, which led to me being part of the neighborhood Facebook page and ultimately in touch with more neighbors. 

We held block parties, celebrated the 4th of July as a community, and often spoke at the mailbox. We walked together on the neighborhood trail and some even dropped off baked treats with notes attached to welcome new neighbors.  

Let’s build, re-build and re-establish our neighborhoods and communities by reaching out to our neighbors in whatever ways feel most comfortable to us. Let’s advocate together for policies so that none of our plants have to die. After all, we are all one big neighborhood community and we can’t water or feed, what we don’t notice is dying.