As some of my friends on WordPress and MyFace know, my husband and I recently offered our home to a 42-year-old friend whom I met through a blog about a year ago and her 11-year-old son. For purposes of this post, I will call them Vickie and John.
Vickie has had a life full of challenges. She comes from a dysfunctional family where there was a history of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Her father abused both her and her younger sister. The younger sister, Vickie’s only sibling, died some years back of cancer at the age of 32. Vickie no longer has any contact with her parents. The dynamics were just too dysfunctional to deal with and she did not want to expose her son to those dynamics.
As is often and sadly the case, Vickie married a man who was abusive. She was married to him for 14 years. The final straw was when he started to beat up on their young son. At that point, Vickie loaded up everything she could into a rundown Toyota Corolla and set off on her own from Fort Worth, eventually settling in San Antonio, Texas.
During the time preceeding her divorce, she met a man through an Internet group who lived in the U.K. A longterm relationship ensued, with Mike making many short visits here to the U.S. and Vickie and John spending six months at one stretch in England with him. However, Vickie and John couldn’t stay in England as much as they wanted to because of custody issues concerning John, a minor, even though his father really had no role in taking care of John. He’s a gameplayer and a manipulator and just wants to make sure that no one else gets what they want. Vickie and John returned to the U.S., leaving Mike in England.
Vickie and Mike married when he was in Texas for a visit a year ago. He’s been back for one visit since then. The plan was to begin the legal immigration process in earnest after the first of this year when Vickie got her income tax refund and could afford to hire an immigration lawyer to help them move this process along with as few glitches as possible. They were trying to get Mike here on a spousal visa, requiring that the U.S. spouse be gainfully employed.
Vickie lost her job the end of January when her company eliminated 300 jobs nationwide due to the severe recession that is going on in our country. She was living paycheck to paycheck with no substantial savings to speak of. She received a month’s severance pay from her employer. That and a tax refund she had yet to receive was what she had to fall back on short-term.
She wanted to leave Texas and put some miles between her and her ex-spouse who is psychopathic and skilled at playing tormenting mind-games, leaving her constantly on edge and vigilant about her and John’s safety and wellbeing. The bottom line is that Dave and I offered her and John our home until she could get on her feet again. Dave flew to San Antonio on February 23, rented a U-Haul truck, and drove Vickie, John and their possessions to Minnesota.
They have been here two weeks now. All is going well. John started school on Monday this week and loves his new school and his classes. Vickie is applying for jobs. We have shopped for interview clothes for her. There have been a steady supply of hugs and “love you’s” in our home. We’re all working together as a family, as a team. For the first time in Vickie and John’s lives, they feel like they have a family, a support system. It’s been an awesome feeling to watch them take all this in, to realize that they’re not alone in the world to struggle with their issues, that there are others right there for them, ready to lend a hand.
The response from family (mostly Dave’s) and friends has been overwhelmingly supportive and positive. However, yesterday I received this email from my 73-year-old cousin in Ohio:





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