(I love being on her Facebook profile pic.)
Almost exactly two years ago, I was sleeping in a pickup. The pickup wasn't mine; it belonged to my father. My father has Alzheimer's Disease with dementia, and he spends his days in a nursing home now. My brother was telling me I needed to return the pickup. My children wanted nothing to do with me, and my ex-wife was more than willing to let me know as much.
Honestly, until my physician wrote me a prescription for some much-needed medication, I was useless to the world. An accident with a drunk driver damaged my brain...my brain...what am I without THAT?? One key malady of a good, hard concussion is depression. Boy, howdy! I thought I had experienced depression until this. It's been awful, too awful to describe. My mind finally cleared (sort of) in April 2017. I still have issues at times (like a lonely Christmas), but I survive better now.
I was in the parking lot of some public park on Lake Georgetown. Unemployed, poor, damaged, homeless, useless. For some reason I still had a working phone. I managed to keep that constant. But there is nobody...nobody...who wanted to talk to me. Over 7 billion people in the world, and I was very, very alone. Typing this makes me revisit those feelings, so I need to move through this part a little quickly.
That night I thought about killing myself, which made it similar to most other nights. I was ready, except I wasn't sure whether anybody would claim my body. Whom would they tell? Yikes, that's alone. Nobody cared at all.
Then my phone dinged. "Hello, sir." It was this strange and beautiful woman from the Philippines. We had been chatting off and on. I needed it to be on that night. She thought I was worth communication. I found myself chatting with her for long enough to forget I didn't want to live. At one point, I remember saying something like, "You know, if I ever get out of this mess...you've hit the jackpot here." Although the timing of everything surprised me as much as those around me, I made a commitment to try to marry her that night.
When there is only one person in the world that wants to talk to you...you don't care why. It doesn't matter. That person is the most important person in the world. That person IS your world.
As time went on, I realized what a treasure I had found. She can speak 3 languages: she's smarter than me. Period. She's more beautiful in three dimensions, too! She has an honest (sometimes patient) sense of humor. She works very hard, and she lives on very little. She's a strong woman; don't let the 92 pound, 4'11" frame fool you. She has three fantastic kids...and that family! Just one big group of open, loving people. Immediate acceptance. Boom! The Philippines is my happy place, for sure.
People have wondered aloud to me:
"I think she was just looking for a husband." (She found one. Lucky me!)
"Doesn't she have, like, 2 or 3 kids?" (Didn't I lose, like, 2 or 3 kids?)
"She just wants you for the citizenship." (I don't think so, but I wouldn't care. *See above*)
"She's gonna take everything you have!" (She's leaving everything she knows...to be with me.)
It's been a long, arduous, expensive, painful process. Life offers no guarantees--I know that now. Hell, I live that now. Still, I have a plan, even if I don't control the outcome:
In three weeks, I will board a plane (killing off two airline miles accounts from a previous life). I drive to Austin, fly to San Diego (where I will spend the night in the airport), fly to Tokyo, and fly to Manila. Then, on August 7, 2018 we have an interview appointment at the United States Embassy in Manila. If all goes well (no guarantees), then on August 15 we will board a plane in Manila--together. We will fly from Manila to Taipei (Say it with me: TAIWAN!). We have a 7 hour layover; then we arrive in the United States...specifically, in Houston.
Yep. Leave from Austin, return to Houston. Nothing's easy. But watch! It'll happen, somehow. God-willing, it will. Weird stuff happens now. It's the flip-side of surrendering control (like you had any!).
And it won't be easy after August 15, either. I've learned that there is no "easy" in life: you trade one set of problems (joys) for another set of problems (joys). It's possible that even more people will live in this little crackerbox house in the fall. Who knows? God, not Paul. I'm finally cool with that.
