May Thar

May Thar was sixteen when she first learned that a home could be taken away. She was born in the countryside of Myanmar, where she spent her childhood with her family. Those early years were full of sweet moments. She could travel freely from one place to another. She attended school with her friends. She found comfort in living in the countryside, running through the fields and tending the farm with her family. They lived peacefully for some time. But as she grew older, the world around her shifted into something less certain. 

At sixteen, May Thar moved to a different village when her family heard news of Burmese military raids. She was at the new village only a short time before fighting and unrest forced her to leave again. Her siblings had scattered as well, and there were times when people were being taken away, the same way their homes had been taken. Food became scarce and school was no longer possible. Back at her village, she had reached sixth grade and briefly attended seventh grade, but her education ended after only two weeks. Instead, she sought out jobs. She cared for other people’s children, carried water, cooked, cleaned, and took whatever work was available. 

When she reached nineteen years old, she married. Her and her husband continued moving from village to village, following whatever measure of safety and stability they could find. Each village, the Burmese military found and took over, forcing them to flee once again. Eventually, they found a village that was secluded enough to settle for a bit. Quietly, she raised her children while her husband worked. She was fearful of leaving the village, so she found another way to provide for her family. She would buy vegetables from farmers who lived south of the village. She would carry the bundles of vegetables on her head, sometimes walking through rain and slippery roads, then sell them outside her house. The profit was small, but it mattered. A little money became food for the household. There was little time, little money, and fewer opportunities to choose a different life. She did what was in front of her. 

Then there were the gunshots. She vividly recalls an attack coming close enough that May Thar could hear bullets hitting near her home. The sound seemed to shake the entire house. The fighting was only a short distance away, close enough to reach on foot  within 20 or 30 minutes. As the whole village started to burn down, she was already running. 

At last, they found safety in a refugee camp in Thailand. But there were restrictions: they could not leave the camp and even if they could, they did not have papers to find work. For years, America was not part of her plans. When people around her began leaving, May Thar began thinking about her children. She imagined a place where her children could attend school, learn, work, and have opportunities that had never been available to her. So she decided to go. “I didn’t hesitate,” she remembers. “I wanted to go, so I’m going.”

In 2008, May arrived in Virginia. She remembers a room was waiting for her, with a mattress, clean sheets, and food in the refrigerator. She had never slept on a mattress before. There was food she had never tasted before. It was a world that she did not yet fully understand yet but she was grateful. People from the community took care of her by setting her up with a bus card and vouchers to get food. 

The first few months were hard because she did not know any English. She wanted to change that. She did not want to always depend on someone else to speak for her or help her find her way. So after working at a hotel during the day, she went to English classes in the evening. Sometimes she was so tired that she did not want to walk another step. Still, she went. At first, even “How are you?” and “I’m fine” were difficult. She remembers repairing the words without understanding what they meant. Slowly, though, the words began to make sense. She learned to read street signs, Each new word gave her a little more independence. 

After a year of working at the hotel, she moved to Minnesota, where her younger sister had settled. She worked for six years at a pork processing plant. Later, when her health made that work difficult, she moved to Marshall to be near her son and family. Today, May Thar works as a Personal Care Assistant for her mother. She also helps at her sister’s grocery store. In caring for her mother, she has found a way to be close to someone she loves while also making a living. She sees this as a gift from God.

Through her faith, she has learned to be resilient. She was raised buddhist and did not know about Jesus when she was young. At sixteen, while living in her father’s village, she encountered Christianity and was baptized. She says that at the time, she did not fully understand how deeply her faith would become rooted in her. Now, she trusts God with what she cannot see. “I know tomorrow is a new day,” she says. “What I was worried about is gone.” Her faith has shaped what she considers a good life. May Thar is grateful to have food, work, family, and a place to live. She is grateful for the freedom to buy what she needs and to finally live without the fears that once followed her. 

That is not to say comfort can erase memory. May Thar often thinks of the people who remain behind. She thinks of the people who still live with the hardships she once knew. She remembers what it felt like to have only enough food to get through the day. Now that she can eat whatever she wants, she wishes she could share what she has with those who cannot. 

In America, she has found some semblance of peace, but she has never stopped carrying her homeland and its people with her. She misses the ease of walking to a neighbor’s house, of seeing people without needing a car, of belonging to a place where everyone knew one another. She would like to one day return to her village, if it was peaceful. It has been about twenty-nine years since she last saw her brother. “I would want it to be like before,” she says. “When there was no fighting or gunshots. So that we can live peacefully.” 

May Thar has spent much of her life moving forward, sometimes because she had no choice and sometimes because she hoped for something better for her family. Along the way, she learned to work hard, to begin again, to learn unfamiliar words, and to trust God with whatever came next. Yet through every journey, she has carried a piece of home with her. Today, her legacy lives on in traditions, language, faith, and stories she passes down, reminding the younger generation of where they come from and the people who came before them.