In 1963, I was two-years old, the youngest of six kids in a poor, dysfunctional family. My father was a chronically out of work alcoholic who physically, mentally and sexually abused all of us. We lived isolated on a rural Missouri farm.
Winters were the worst. Dad would go to town, get drunk then spend weeks at his own parent’s house. He’d ‘forget’ to pay the propane bill so we’d run out. On cold winter nights we’d put mattresses together on the floor in one room then huddle together under the piled blankets and try to keep each other warm.
My then twenty-five year old mother had finally had enough. She loaded us into her tiny old car and drove straight to Oklahoma City and the same orphanage where she had grown up. She enrolled my siblings but kept me because I was too young. The priest my mom knew promised to provide for them until mom could come back for them.
My aunt lived in Chicago. Said she’d loan mom money for rent, etc. Except, my mom had no money and no way to get to Chicago. Her car wouldn’t make the trip.
From nowhere a complete stranger came into our lives. The man gave us a ride from Oklahoma City to Chicago, said ‘good bye’ and we never heard from him again.
Just over a year later, mom had us all back together again.
Forty years later, a similar situation occurred in my life. This time, I was the “man.”
I met a woman in Denver who had two small kids. I soon found out that she too needed to get away from her sexually, physically and emotionally abusive ex-husband. She had just moved to Denver from a ‘safe’ house in Wyoming. Quickly enough her ex-husband had found her so she returned to the safe house.
Her story had a few “complications.” She was a ‘mail-order’ bride from Indonesia. Her husband had taken her passport and her children didn’t have passports either. Her only chance of getting away, and out of this country was through her country’s consulate’s in Los Angeles.
Over the years of her own ordeal, she’d written the conselate regularly. They were apprised of her situation and promised to help if she could get to Los Angeles – and fast.
I had lost my mother to cancer a few of months earlier and was still grieving deeply. She was my rock. I prayed to her and asked for her intervention and guidance. Almost immediately I agreed to help.
From Denver, I drove up and met them at the Wyoming safe house, loaded their worldly possession and left under the cover of darkness.
Three very tense days later, we arrived at the consulate’s and were promptly “processed” for visas and documentation. Ten hours later, the woman and her children boarded the plane that took them 20-plus hours to safety. And their own new start.
