Saving the Family House

My father, the older gentleman in the photo, is a 25-year disabled Navy Veteran. He lovingly, attentively, and diligently raised my sister and I. He joyfully doted on us and our mother; his generosity, joy, humbleness, and laughs are boundless.

 On January 7th, 2016, my father drove the 70 miles home from work to find his house stripped of furniture, fixings, or my mother, his wife. She abandoned him and our family, lied to him about her spending, and took possession of their "investment house" - their nest egg for retirement. She had painted a golden, rosy future where they could retire, and watch the sunsets after the summer monsoons from their porch.

Since then, he has been fighting an uphill battle to maintain his spirits and to improve his life. Last month, a resolution was finally reached in the divorce. Unfortunately this resolution, combined with my mother's deceitful and excessive spending from the last ten years, has left him alone and without a savings account, pension, or resources to fall back on.

I write about myself to give a small amount of perspective on what happened: Due to his influence, I joined the United States Army, and have deployed both to Iraq and Afghanistan. With my own military background, there is nothing that horrifies me more than the idea that I could leave for work - or a deployment - with a wife and a home, and return to a stripped shell of a building and family. More than anything in the world, I want my father stay in the home where he taught us how to ride bicycles. I want him to look out at the backyard where he would set up a tent, inflate a leaky and squeaking air mattress, and stay up all night reading stories to my sister and I by an old flashlight. Where he taught me values of honesty, loyalty, integrity, kindness, joy, and strength.

Any money raised will go to paying off his existing debts and legal fees from the divorce. My father desperately wants to continue living in the house he raised a family in. He has fought to do this on his own - immediately taking as much overtime as his work would allow, cutting expenses and amenities, only repurchasing the necessities that my mother had stripped from him. He has grown more and more despondent through the recent months. His voice is strained. There is a desperate hope in his voice when he broaches the dream of actually keeping his house and continuing to pay the mortgage. Without intervention, he believes that he will lose his home by Christmas. In less than a year, my mother has completely destroyed their life.

I don't know how to properly express my gratitude. Releasing him from the fear and the stress and the shame. Seeing my father, smiling and laughing, in our family home, as he realizes that he is not homeless for Christmas. The knowledge that he will get to show his future grandchildren where the best adventures are. That he will teach them backgammon. And most importantly, that he will get to spoil them rotten, tell them his best dad jokes, and ensure that they always have a place to be loved.