Heartbreak

Despite a really lovely day yesterday, I actually feel a little heartbroken this morning.
I have to be very careful about what movies I see because I actually, somehow, think that they are real. (I remember being nervous about walking in the movie theater parking lot after watching a movie about Chicago mafia members shooting each other throughout the entire film. I was sure that I was about to get gunned down.)
Last night I went and saw the beautiful movie, "The Visitor," a movie about a middle-aged professor who meets an immigrant couple living in his apartment and, inspired by them, reconnects with his life. But the couple are not here legally and one simple misunderstanding sends one of them back to his dangerous home in Syria. The story was so well told (and acted) that I sat in my seat as the lights came on simply heartbroken.
I woke this morning thinking about the friends that I work with at the Minnesota Literacy center every week who are there to improve their English. I have no idea if they are legal or not and to me, it doesn't matter. But if they are here without their papers, I think about how they have to live with the fear of discovery every minute of their day, and that is the price that they're willing to pay to live here. A car accident, a home robbery....there is so much that they can't control that could reveal their situation to the authorities...and yet it is a risk that they're willing to take in order to live here. I would be absolutely heartbroken if one of them disappeared, and unlike the movie, it would be all too real.