When my son was a little boy, every night I would read the same book to him, the “Runaway Bunny”, by Margaret Wise. In this book, the baby bunny threatens to run away in order to attempt to avoid the Mother Rabbit’s grasp but the Mother Rabbit promises to follow him, wherever he goes, by changing forms to fit in with his new environment.

Today I am the Mother Rabbit, for as I write this column my “runaway bunny” has run as far away as Valdivia, Chile but I, unlike Margaret Wise’s Mother Rabbit, have been unable to  follow him and thus to spread my maternal protective cloak around him.

My “bunny” is 23 and, with guitar and backpack in hand, has lived in Puebla, Mexico, in Madrid, Spain and has been all the richer for the friends and skills he has gained. Fluent in Spanish, adventurous and eager to experience and enjoy new cultures and lands, this time around my runaway bunny is bound for the Universidad Austral in Valdivia, Chile, where he has been granted a Fulbright scholarship to teach English and research Chilean film.

However, unlike in prior adventures where the only unknown that he has faced has been the new life and culture to which he would need to adapt, this time around he will be arriving in Valdivia, after a plane ride to Miami, a change of plane into Santiago and a 8-9 hour journey, followed by a 10 hour bus ride, with no place to live for the next 9 months. He, who is trusting and generally fearless, will need to quickly find lodgings, without knowledge of the city and its potential dangers. He is extremely lucky, for he has a legal working visa in Chile and the financial support of the Fulbright Commission but, as the Mother Rabbit, I worry, perhaps unnecessarily (as he suggests).

My parental fears make me wonder: However did those other mothers who sent (or allowed) their children to go so far away manage? How did they sleep at night? Did they wake up worrying who would care for their “child” when he became ill in a strange land? Did those mothers who sent their children to attend university in the Delaware Valley on valid student visas wonder how quickly an airplane would bring them to their son if and when he needed them? What about those mothers whose runaway bunnies fled to the United States, to take jobs on H-1B visas that have now disappeared, with families in tow and no legal means of support? What about those “children” who lack legal permission to be here, but are here for the sole purpose of making enough money to send back to their home countries to support their families (let’s momentarily ignore the many arguments regarding their lack of legal status and view these individuals as we should—as someone’s “child”)? What did these mothers tell their children as the crossed the border, knowing that they might not perhaps see them ever again? How does a mother bear such pain?

As a Fulbright Fellow, my son, who has spent the last six months working with Philadelphia Legal Assistance in the mortgage foreclosure department attempting to help the agency’s clients to save their homes and prior months working with immigrants in the Philadelphia area, will be representing the U.S. government and the words that will come from his mouth and his heart should only be ones that talk about the goodness, promise and hope of America.. However, after seeing the economic devastation in our country and our broken immigration system, what will he tell those Chileans who ask what is happening in his home country? Will he say that America has lost her way but, together its people will find it once again? In the nine months of his Chilean journey, will he learn what so many of us have learned: that America, despite our current problems, is still a land filled with possibilities and the freedom to dream and to “become”? When my runaway bunny returns home, will he be ready to do what his generation must do: fight for the future of his country? I do not know the answers but I hope and pray for the same thing that every mother wishes for her child: that my runaway bunny will be happy, safe and will return home close to where the Mother Rabbit resides at the end of his journey.