Helping to keep us moving

My wife Ann and I need help to repair our car. Ann is disabled so our car is our lifeline. I was recently laid off from my job at Best Buy due to covid cut backs, I think, so now is the worst time for this to happen. Ann is having regular follow-up appointments at a hospital in New Orleans following reconstructive surgery. We need our car to get there. Our car insurance company is being about as helpful as most of them are, which is not much. I also need the car to look for a new job. Where we live in Mississippi no-one will hire me without reliable transport. There's no public transport here. I can't pay for repairs without a wage. The classic catch 22!

Want to know our story? We met by chance in a Facebook group for disabled people back in 2011 I have disabilities too but they're unnoticeable to most people. We chatted online for four years until in 2015 Ann took the bold decision to travel alone to Scotland to meet me. Her Dad paid for the trip. He and her mom, whom she lost to cancer in 2005, always wanted her to travel despite her impairments. When we met face-to-face we felt like we had known eachother forever. We knew we were meant for eachother. 🙂

Ann considered emigrating to Scotland as she loved the place and loved me. However, she didn't feel that she could leave her Dad. He was old and increasingly frail. She couldn't know how long she would still have him. So, it was decided that I would leave everything and come to America. I finally arrived for good in November 2017. No more tearful goodbyes in airports. Thank goodness!

Sadly, Ann's Dad died, also from cancer, the previous August. He never got to walk his only daughter up the aisle when we married that December. It broke our hearts but Ann knew in her heart that her parents Charlie and Loretta were there in spirit.

It took two years to get my green card so I could work. I did some voluntary work to keep me busy and thank goodness the green card came before our savings dwindled so I could work to support us both. Now though, we're a bit stuck. Still totally in love and, if we could live on that alone, we'd be rich indeed. We're happy but broke, and really stuck in a hole. Just trying to survive and make sure our love story has a happy ending.

We hate asking for charity but, it has come to this. We have nothing to give in return but, can you spare a dime to help us?