“I was just so angry,” sponsor David Medeiros says when he thinks about it now. “My life was so empty...so dark and empty. After I lost my son, Bobby, everything went downhill.”
David loved his son more than anything else in the world. When Bobby was killed by a drunk driver in 2004, David couldn’t see the point of living.
Overwhelmed with grief, the heartbroken father began drinking harder than ever before, drinking to forget. Alcohol had robbed him of the one thing he loved the most – it might as well take his life, too, or so said his shattered logic.
A heart half-empty
Two lonely years lapsed, the worst of his life, before a special letter arrived in the mail. It was an invitation
to sponsor a child.
“Inside my mailbox was this picture of this little girl,” David still vividly recalls. “I’d never heard of Children International or even inquired about [them]. So I was reading her story and then something hit me....”
Looking at the letter brought back memories of his destitute childhood in the Azores, the islands off the coast of Portugal. “Back in those days, I never had a pair of shoes or sandals,” David explains. His mother had passed away when he was still very young, so he and his siblings were taken in by their grandmother, a woman slight in stature but strong in spirit. Their house was nothing more than a shack with a dirt floor. |
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Sponsorship provided a ray of hope during
his darkest hours, David says. |
“We were poor, but we always had enough to share with somebody else,” David says nostalgically, 39 years after leaving the Azores for Fall River, Massachusetts. “She taught us that there was always someone worse
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off than you.”
Filled with a sense of empathy, David replied to Children International and asked for more information.“When I got Luis’ picture, that was it. I knew my mind was made up. From that day on, it’s been magic.”
Looking into Luis’ eyes was a sobering experience, David now admits. He started attending A.A. meetings and decided to use the money he’d normally spend on alcohol and cigarettes for sponsorship.
Soon he was able to sponsor Luis’ brother, Juan, and provide extra support to help the boys’ family in Guatemala. Then he started sponsoring a boy named Jefry, also in Guatemala, followed by Arnaldo in Honduras, and Christopher and Mauricio in Ecuador.
“I love these children like my own, and I treat each of them differently. Each letter is different – and it’s personal between each one of them,” David affirms. “When I send something, it’s always in memory of my son, Bobby. Whenever I send the sponsorship fee every month or a special gift, he’s always there with me. Because this is what he would want his dad to do.” |
| Luis, the first of David’s six sponsored children, has become like a surrogate son. David writes to him frequently and showers him with gifts. |
A heart filled with hope
After living in the United States for over 30 years, David finally became a citizen in 2006, the same year he sobered up and became a sponsor. Since then, his life has taken a dramatic turn for the better, along with the lives of the six children he sponsors. They are, as he puts it, his “little futures.”
“These children have changed my life completely. People who knew me then, who see me today, they still can’t believe it...because I smile more,” David says proudly, the smile on his face clearly shining through the sound of his voice.
Asked what his son would say if he could see his dad today, David lets out a joyful laugh and exclaims, “Well done, Old Timer. You did it! This is right up your alley... |
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| Memories of his late son, Bobby (pictured in this photo from 1992), inspire David to do all he can for his sponsored childen. “Bobby loved this picture,” he says. |
“To have that person gone, and to have that void in my life...these children fill that horrible void. It’s such a good feeling! To do what I’m doing...I love this! It’s a gift.”
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