We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Slight alteration in blogs starting this week: switching Monday’s and Wednesday’s blogs. On Miscellaneous Mondays, we’ll talk about whatever happens to pop into my head—or any suggestion you may have made for a topic. Worshipful Wednesdays will be posts devoted to Christian themes. Forensic Fridays will delve into examining this strange language we speak and write. Now, on to today’s subject.

You remember Anabel? The waitress at my favorite breakfast spot whose travails I’ve chronicled several times as she worked through the waiting and red tape trying to get her husband admitted to the United States as a legal immigrant?

One day last week I walked into the restaurant, and she ran over to me with a huge smile on her face. He was here! She finally had her family back together, and her kids had a father back home.

As a conscientious, law-abiding and patriotic American, I do want to see our laws properly enforced. I don’t think it’s right for people to cross our borders illegally and use the largesse of our system to support them in a style they’d never have back home. But the case of Anabel’s husband doesn’t exactly fit that mold.

He was brought across the border as a child and had nothing to do with either the decision to come or the method of doing so. He was, in every sense, an innocent victim of decisions made for him by others.

Nor was he rounded up and deported because of participating in some crime or I.C.E. sweep. Recognizing how wrong it was to be here illegally, he turned himself in and was sent back to Mexico voluntarily.

Surely our immigration laws and regulations should see a man in his position as a different case from those who keep sneaking across the border of their own volition in an attempt to take advantage of our standard of living. You’d think so, but apparently they don’t.

This man had to remain in Mexico for nineteen months—separated from the wife and children he loves—to fit some arbitrary standard and wait for interminably slow progress to be made working through all the red tape involved in getting back here legally. For nineteen months, Anabel retired to a cold, lonely bed every night. For all those nineteen months his kids had to get along without a father—a father who loved them very much.

The wheels turn slowly, but they do turn. He is now back home, reunited with the family he loves and missed so much. Now he has to watch his wife continue to support the family while he waits for the Social Security card that will let him work and the driver’s license that will let him drive to work.

Through all this, Anabel has never wavered. Neither her faith in God nor her steadfast insistence on doing things legally has waned. Her battle is not over and won’t be until these last bits of red tape are dealt with and he is able to support his family as he wants so badly to do, but HE’S HOME. This is what my friend has been waiting for all this time.

Have you ever had to go through an extended period of time separated from your spouse? Your children? Let us know how you handled it.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx@gmail.com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.