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Selene wrote her cousin, who traveled north to the United States for a better life, goodbye and Godspeed. Selene encouraged her cousin to be strong during her uncertain trip.

When the cousin felt lonely and scared, she need only think of Selene, who promised they one day would be together again.

And in a poignant message, Selene wrote, "I do not want you to be sad. On the contrary, I want you to be happy for the baby you carry inside you."

Selene's handwritten letter, on a weathered sheet of white paper, was one of the many items left by illegal border crossers in an Arivaca wash and collected Saturday morning by about 20 Samaritan volunteers whom I accompanied.

People and politicians from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., can talk all they want about the abstract complexities of illegal immigration, but there was nothing abstract or complex about what we found in the sand or tangled in the dying mesquite trees and parched creosote bushes.

To some people, the plastic bags of Bimbo bread, the empty tins of tuna and beans, the dry plastic bottles of Electrolit water, the jackets, socks, underwear, shoes, watches, toothbrushes and notebooks are all trash.

But to others, the left-behind items are reminders of the lives of people who trekked through the arroyo, about 40 miles south of Tucson. And not all those people who crossed the border were anonymous.

Mari Serrano carried a receipt for her March plane trip, on Aeromexico flight 904, from Mexico City to Hermosillo, Sonora. Flor Diaz Nuñez, a 21-year-old woman from Veracruz, Mexico, left her voter identification card.

And Gabriela Cardena flew to Hermosillo from Mexico City on Sept. 14, 2005. She probably didn't travel alone, however. Walter Collins, a retired school psychologist, found Cardena's airline ticket receipt near a pile of diapers and empty containers of baby food. The find told Collins a sobering story.

"It makes me feel she was extremely desperate or otherwise she wouldn't be engaging in this dangerous endeavor. I hope she found refuge," said Collins, 67, who was joined by his wife, Gretchen, 67.

The Samaritans filled more than 50 large plastic bags during the three-hour effort and dumped them in the Arivaca landfill. Usable backpacks and clothing were separated. They will be washed and distributed among Tucson's homeless adults and needy children.

The ubiquitous gallon plastic water containers were saved for the recycling bin. But some brittle containers, having been in the sun too long, shattered when touched.

Imagine how the dead bodies of illegal border crossers deteriorate under the same sun.

We did not discover human remains, but we did find live humans.

About 40 scared and nervous men and women were hiding near the wash, out of sight from a nearby hovering military helicopter. The group thought the Samaritans were U.S. Border Patrol agents.

The volunteers assured the migrants they were not.

The Samaritans, including 12-year-old Lucas Garcia, a Magee Middle School student, gave them crackers and food bars to eat, and bottles of water and Gatorade to drink. The migrants also received blankets and a mother accepted diapers for her baby.

They were hungry, thirsty, tired — and grateful. They had walked for two days. They had stopped to rest and would resume their journey. The Samaritans bid them goodbye and wished them Godspeed.

Maybe they'll find refuge. Maybe Selene's cousin did, too.