A Veteran's Family In Crisis Receives Help... Texas Style

In our early years of marriage and then children, Mr. Snoots was never quite into Christmas. He detested all the shopping and all the work, which all made him very cranky indeed. Somehow, over the years, this man has truly softened and begun to enjoy it. He actually got irritated with me this year for not letting him help, but that was just the beginning.

Mr. Snoots moderates several forums on a local community website and was privy to the knowledge that a local veteran and his family had been badly treated and ultimately evicted by a local slumlord. They had no heat when the temperatures were dipping to negative digits so they refused to pay rent until it was fixed. Of course, that's when the slumlord chose to evict them. The veteran Dad is a hard worker and has a job, as does the Mom, but they had just fallen on hard times, right at Christmastime, with several small children. People on the forums began to rally in order to help this family and Mr. Snoots was on the front lines.

There was one local man (a veteran and a cancer survivor) who would go to their house every morning and pick up the children and their mother, drive them to their school, then drive the mother back home. He would repeat the process at the end of the school day. There were others who rallied to give them a good Christmas, with gifts in abundance.

There was yet another local man who gave them $4,000.00 in cash so they could find a place to live, affording first and last month's rent, and then some. People just seemed to open their hearts and wallets for this precious family.

Mr. Snoots came home so excited and discussed with me whether we should give his Dad's old Cadillac to this family because they clearly needed transportation. Now, you must understand how very much this car means to him. He has held onto this car since his father died from cancer in 1998. He loved his dad's old car and poured tons of money into it over the years, in order to keep it running. I told him I was all for the donation but that, the decision was surely his since I'd wanted to get rid of it years ago. (Forget the fact I am crying as I write this and can barely see my keyboard.)

This was truly the most wonderful sacrifice this man could have made and he felt so good for doing it. While I was taking SD to the airport yesterday, he was able to meet up with the whole group that organized help for the family, to give the family the car. He said they all just broke into tears and he almost cried as he described the scene for me. Believe me, he is not the type to weep easily or openly. The last time he cried was when they pulled Baby Jessica from the well, okay? We had been glued to the TV for the entire extraction ordeal.

He claims there were many others who did so much more for this family than he, but they have no idea the sacrifice that came from this man's huge heart. This whole outpouring of love and concern made me feel so much better about people, about our small city, about Americans, and about my dear Mr. Snoots. There is a Santa Claus after all. There are many of them out there in the world.

It is imperative that we help the veterans who have fought for this country. I find it disgusting that the government has failed so many of our veterans, in so many ways. It is certainly time for that to be changed.