my great love story
I come from a lineage of great love stories.
My great-grandparents' love was forbidden :
My great-grandma, Prisulla, a first generation Greek immigrant, was betrothed to a fat old baker. She and her seven sisters worked at their father's steel mill in California. It was there Prisulla fell in love with a young German named Samuel White. Refusing to accept the fate of her arranged marriage, my great-grandma climbed out of her bedroom window to run away and marry Samuel. In response, her father forbid any family member to speak to them for seven years. Prisulla and Samuel returned to work at the steel mill where they silently worked alongside her sisters for seven years. After the seven years were over, Samuel, was embraced and welcomed into the family.
My parents’ love is the stuff country songs are made of:
My dad, was the opitemne of a surfer boy when my grandparents left Los Angelos in ‘79 and bought land in Minnesota to try their hand as dairy farmers. My mom, a sweet Catholic girl with bright green eyes, grew up on a dairy farm a couple miles down the road.
They were going steady by the summer of ‘82. My dad visited my mom by horse until he turned 16. When he got his license, he sold his pure-bred Arabian, Jen, and bought 1972 Mercury Montego. It was with that car, after the homecoming football game in the fall of ‘83, my parents secretly ran away, pregnant with me. Before they left, my 16 year old father encyclopedia researched states rich in dairy in his high school library. He found a job as a farmhand the day they arrived in Pennsylvania.
They made it back to Minnesota before I was born, finished high school and lived blissfully happy ever after.
When you grow up around great love stories like these, you long for moments of reckless abandon with a happy ending. You long for blind trust. You long for opportunities to be honorable. Spontaneity. Freedom.
At least... that’s what happened to me.
I landed my dream job out of college, a single mother of two. After breaking free from all that was James, I relished my second chance at freedom. One porch + wine night in St Paul circa 2013, my friend Sara asked: “Do you see yourself ever getting married again?” I uttered back something that felt like a secret: “Lately, I think- it might be a waste of my time- to concentrate on loving just one man. I think- I might be better at loving as many people in this world as possible.”
in 2014 : God granted me a moment of reckless abandon. Spontaneity. He gave me the chance to blindly trust Him with opportunities to be honorable.
Haiti Mama may be my love story. . . and as we celebrate our 4 year anniversary, it occurred to me that this is the longest I’ve ever been in love.
What my love story and my parents’ + great grandparents love stories have in common : is that moment when allow yourself to love, exactly how your heart wants to.
The stuff happy endings are made of.
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r e u n i t e | r e h a b i l i t a t e | r e s t o r e
the best thing we do + the thing we do best : restoring families.
these services take unique form for every family + individual but the goal is to bring families back together + empower them to L O V E.
It’s an honor to receive support from the lakes of MN to hills of Tennessee. Every dime God gives us is sacred and used with thoughtfulness, integrity, and gratefulness. Giving to Haiti Mama allows us to show more love to more people. The progress is undeniable. God’s doing stuff here.
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