My name is Vic.

I look back on seventy-five years and God’s love never ceases to amaze me.  I did not deserve my parents, and so many others who loved me and trusted me.  I have a lot of regrets and try now to live with honesty with myself, others, and with God.  Looking back, I wish I had been less fearful and made better decisions.  I wish I could ask for forgiveness, and everything start anew.  This is my story.

Dad came from Louisiana.  He fought against the Nazis in Italy and was a decorated war hero.  After rescuing a young Italian woman, he married her in Italy and brought her as a “war bride” to start a new life in the U.S.   He worked as a bus driver for the original MTA in Los Angeles.  I am the oldest of their three children.  I have a younger sister.  My younger brother died when he was 19 years of age.

Faintly, I remember moments of peace in our household, seeing my mom and dad get along.  Mostly, our home life was a “war zone.”  Dad never got over the war and the things he had seen and been a part of.  Mom was a teen during wartime, and she could not forget those times of absolute terror: hiding from Nazi soldiers, witnessing atrocities, at the brink of starvation. Mom suffered from PTSD and whenever there was a “boom” sound, she fell into hysteria, screaming, and crying.  My dad, who also suffered from PTSD, coped by drinking himself to sleep.

One time, I remember my dad made my mom scared for her life during an argument and she called the police, took my siblings with her, and stayed away for a few days, until my dad cooled off.  Despite my mom being terrorized at home by my dad, she stayed married to him.  

My parents, though bringing the war home with them, were not “monsters.”  They tried to offer us as normal of a life as possible: my dad worked to put food on the table and a roof over our heads.  My mom started me down the path for becoming a Catholic.

Because of the volatile nature of my family, I never invited anyone over to my parents’ home.   My loneliness drove me to seek out love, approval, and acceptance outside of home.  I sought to escape:

    • I spent a lot of time at our city’s Parks and Recreation and made friends through participating in extra-curricular sports.  If there was a free sports program, I showed up for it.  I played basketball, baseball, football, and ran track and marathons.
    • I started to hang out with Art, a friend from High School.  He was very talkative and liked to tell jokes.   His humor came from a life of pain, so we had a lot in common.  We smoked pot and did other drugs together.  As a lot of our friends were being drafted into the Army to go fight in Vietnam, we smoked pot as we pondered our future. We got busted together for possession of marijuana and spent the weekend in jail. Art and I became good friends.
    • For a few years, a kind-hearted, smiling, giggling neighbor lady showed me a glimpse of what it was like to really live. She was a devout Catholic, clearly dedicated to her marriage and her five sons.  I was not a stranger in their home; I felt included.  She demonstrated to me what persistent prayer was.  She was a coach and a mentor to me and many others.  She was the nurturing mom I never had.  

After high school, I avoided the draft for the Vietnam War by enrolling at East L.A. Junior College.  I focused on studying and then transferred to Cal State L.A (CSULA) majoring in Accounting.  My good friend, Art, opted to go to Vietnam and he trained to be a medic.   

At 20, I met a young woman.  I felt intoxicated being around her because she was very pretty.  She was my first girlfriend, and I didn’t know anything about relationships.  Because of my drug use, I was unable to tell her my true feelings and thoughts.  I lied about a lot of things.  For me, it was all about how good I felt being around her. Because of my immaturity, I got her pregnant; I felt sorrowful about the position I put her in.  In retrospect, because our relationship was built on pleasure and untruths, there was no real foundation.  She had no desire to marry me.  With few options, she finally consented to it.  I had steady work at Carl’s Shoes distribution center to support my new family, but when I came home we argued a lot.  After 18 months together, she divorced me and she got full custody of our daughter.

After the dissolution of my marriage, I experienced another huge blow: my brother was murdered.  I cried and cried.  I was angry and became very bitter.  I wanted justice, but nobody knew who had killed him.  To this day, it is an unsolved crime.    

After graduating from CSULA, I tried to pass the CPA exam, but it proved to be too difficult.  I continued working at Carl’s Shoes and wondered what I should do with my life.  Around that time, I met a woman who was visiting the U.S. from South America.  We became friends and fell in love. To support our future together, I headed toward a career in Real Estate.  She and I were married in the Catholic Church as we started our life together.

After the Vietnam War ended, my friend Art was discharged and came back to Los Angeles.  He was a mess!  Hanging out with him was not the same.  In the Army, he had become a heroin addict.  I couldn’t afford to get into trouble and I didn’t want to be around drugs and his addiction.  As good friends, I couldn’t stay away from him either.

A funny thing happened.  A few years passed and Art began changing.  He spoke about religion and God.  He spoke differently, was less angry, and seemed, strangely, at peace.

One day, he asked me: “Vic, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

My wife and my family attended Catholic mass regularly, and I was attending a Catechism class, but I never encountered that question before.

His question made me think because I never considered having a relationship with Jesus.

He continued: “To have a relationship with God, you need to accept Jesus.”

I respected Art and he led me in the Sinner’s Prayer.  At 30, I accepted Jesus to be my Lord and Savior.

My family and I continued to attend the Catholic Church even when my Catechism teacher left.

About a year later, my family and I moved to Sylmar, California and we began attending a small non-denominational church on Foothill Boulevard.  The church’s extraordinary founder, Ma Bean, had a heart for evangelism and compassion for the destitute.  I joined in the church’s ministry activities and learned how to speak with all kinds of ordinary broken people using the Scriptures to guide and encourage, and I learned how to pray with people and share the Gospel.  We enjoyed attending this little church for a few years.

What happened next crushed me and tore my family apart:

In the years since I lived with my parents, my dad retired from the MTA and my parents took on a job managing an apartment complex.  My dad began having serious health issues:  he had dementia, problems communicating, and he had trouble carrying out the physical requirements of his job.  For the first time in his life, my dad could not help himself.  Then, my dad had a horrible accident in which he suffered a traumatic brain injury.  This new situation compounded his condition and required him to be fed by a feeding tube.  I tried to bring my dad home to live with us, but my wife could not handle it. I found a nursing home, but this embittered me against my wife.  Over the next three years, I visited him and cared for him nearly every day.  This constancy grew in me a love for my dad that I never had before.

When death suddenly took him, I descended rapidly into depression.  I was overcome by grief having lost a father that I had only recently come to love.  To numb my pain, I worked six days a week and I would not come home until very late.  I did not let my wife help me through my emotional minefield, and because I chose to isolate myself from her physically and emotionally, we grew apart.  First, she spent her summers in South America visiting her family.  Then, she decided to move back there, and she moved in with her parents.  She took two of our sons with her.  Our youngest son stayed with me.  Feeling conflicted, I followed my friends to a club where I opened myself up emotionally to another woman and we started having an affair.  When my wife came back to the U.S. to have another go at our marriage, I felt more conflicted because I didn’t want to admit to her that I had involved myself with another woman. My wife could not understand why I chose to live somewhere else.  My deceit and the pain that I caused her went on for years!  Even when I finally admitted to the affair, I remained married to my wife.  My affair came to an end after 8 years and she divorced me.  Our divorce made our sons very angry at the both of us.

Not wanting to be alone, I began dating.  A woman caught my eye at a dance.  We had a lot of experiences in common and we became friends.  About a year and a half later, we married and started our life together.

Despite my growing up as the child of an alcoholic, two failed marriages, two broken families, and having issues with maturity and security, I still had faith in God.  He was still on the throne, even though I was defeated and broken. Was I worthy of my new wife? No.  Did God give up on me? No.  God must have a plan for my life, I thought.

At 67, I re-dedicated my life to serve the Lord.

I discovered what it meant to worship God and to hear His voice.

I was deeply touched by the truths of the Holy Scriptures.  Two Scriptures came to be important to how I wanted to live my life:

    • Esther 4:14 – This is your time, Esther:  speak and save your people, or remain silent.  I chose to open my mouth and speak words of life.
    • Joshua 24:15 – Whom will I serve?  “..as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  I renounced my former ways and I chose to serve the Lord Jesus

I know that I cannot undo the actions I did to cause so much pain and I regret the damage I caused to my families.

As for my family, for them I strive to be bold and not fearful, to say what I mean, to be a man of integrity, to love and do the right things, to be humble and to ask for their forgiveness.  

“But he who received the seed into stony places…” (Matthew 13:20a)