I was supposed to be picking up my daughter from the airport this morning. She was supposed to start Portuguese language classes on Monday (3 days after arrival). Instead, we have had to reschedule her flight. The uncertainty is maddening. The worry is real.
I love all my children fiercely. I am extremely proud of them all, and I will always do all I can to help them be happy and feel safe. But because of who my children are, none of them feel safe these days. The daughter who is supposed to be in the air right now is waiting to hear from someone who can tell her where her passport is, wondering when she can join us here in Portugal, feeling particularly unsafe. This is unacceptable to me.
My beautiful, brilliant, wonderful daughter is transgender and autistic. She currently resides in Utah. Until this summer, she was a student at UVU. She would not have been present at the Charlie Kirk event for several reasons, not the least of which is his hateful statements about transgender people. I’m not here to discuss the murder; I’m just illustrating the multiple layers of stressors on her right now. I just want her here with me.
So why is she not on the flight right now? Her passport is missing. She received notification from the Portugal embassy in San Francisco that her student visa application was approved on August 26. My daughter followed the instructions in the notification to send in her passport to have the visa stamped into it. She overnighted it and included with it a prepaid overnight envelope to be returned to her. The instructions said to note when the travel date is, ostensibly to ensure that it is returned in time. We knew that it would be a tight timeline, but we had every reason to believe that the passport would be returned in time.
We have heard nothing, even though it was indicated that the turnaround time should be within five business days. They don’t take phone calls, and emails have gone unanswered. When do we blink?
I am the queen of overthinking and anticipating Worst Case Scenarios. If we decide to report the passport lost, we could theoretically expedite a replacement and get it stamped with the visa in time for the rescheduled flight. But what if soon after reporting the passport lost, the original shows up?
I am sure that everyone at the embassy is doing their job. I’m sure they’re busy. We are grateful that the visa has been granted. But this limbo is unbearable. My daughter has been working hard for several months trying to get to Portugal. She wants to learn Portuguese and attend a university here.
She wants to live somewhere where she doesn’t have to worry that being at the wrong place at the wrong time will get her or someone she loves shot by some random wacko for no reason at all. She wants to live somewhere where she doesn’t have to listen every day to people talking about how her very existence is offensive or dwelling on the fact that a couple of the MANY school shootings were by transgender individuals, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of them have been at the hands of white cisgender males.
She wants to live somewhere where the politicians are at least trying to represent the people of their state or nation instead serving their own interests and lining their own pockets. She wants to live somewhere where the health and insurance industries actually exist to help people instead of generating massive profits for a select few while millions of people are denied care or are driven to bankruptcy by the care they do receive.
No place is perfect, no institution is perfect. Life isn’t perfect for me here, and it won’t be perfect for my daughter. But it’s orders of magnitude better here. I expected to spend this weekend showing my daughter around this wonderful place that I love. I had a plan for helping her adjust to the time difference before she began classes on Monday. I was excited. Now I’m worried and scared.
Believe it or not, I’m not writing this to complain or generate outrage or even sympathy. I’m writing this because I have the fervent, irrational belief that when something is lost, it turns up once I have complained out loud that I cannot find it. This has been proven to a significant degree by data gathered over the course of more than 60 years.
This is my last resort silly attempt to get the universe to shake loose that passport and get it back into my daughter’s hands. I know that there are so many people dealing with much worse ordeals. But right now, my world is centered around getting my daughter here.
Please send out a good thought, good vibes, prayers, or whatever you do to ask for a good outcome. In return, we will take you to lunch when you visit us here. I’ll let my daughter choose the restaurant.
Becoming Portuguese 
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