lettertobrothers

 ***Composed after I returned from my trip to Texas.*** 

Queridos hermanos,

     I'm not sure of all that you know of me and my past, but here is a synopsis.

     I was born in Puerto Rico in 1978 and my family relocated to San Antonio, TX in 1980.  My "father" abandoned the family when I was five.  No contact, no child support, he totally blew us off.  My mother raised us all by herself.  I have also had a couple closed traumatic brain injuries, four years apart.  

     After my accidents I began to walk as much as I could, how humans are meant to get around.  After walking so much my life began to improve significantly and I became much happier.  Nothing sparks happiness like good health.  Walking will also teach you patience.

     My early work history consisted of telemarketing and pizza delivery.  I also mastered downloading pirated software.  These are just some of the many things that have resulted in lessons for me that revealed to me my true path.

     Around 2002 I decided I had some real knowledge to share.  I composed a story and began sharing it with all I could.  Every single day I would approach complete strangers with, "Can I tell you a really interesting story?  I am not asking for anything.  I just want you to listen.  It's a free story.  It's not religious, I promise.  It's a true story."  I became a long-distance walker/journalist.  I carried a microcassette recorder with me everywhere I walked and started documenting all of my wanderings.  

     Once when I was really hungry I walked into a Mexican restaurant and kindly asked for some "gasoline for my stomach so I could keep walking," and was promptly served.  I tried it at a couple other Mexican restaurants with the same exact result, "Sientate, mijo, Come."  

      I seriously started walking ALL over San Antonio(with the help of the bus) with a walking stick.  After doing so I started getting recognized all the time.  I NEVER had to worry about food with so many Mexican restaurants in San Antonio.  The willingness to help and LOVE showed to me by my fellow Latinos taught me one VERY important fact.  WE DON'T NEED MONEY TO LIVE.  MONEY IS MODERN SLAVERY!  

      My inspiring story evolved and I became the "talk of the town."  I was giving people REAL hope.  On more than one occasion people told me my story kept them from killing themselves.  The signs were everywhere for me.   

      It eventually dawned on me that my story had some great potential and I needed to take it abroad, to test my generosity-theory.  "There's Mexican restaurants all over the world.  I will never go hungry," I figured.

      From 2002 to 2009 I toured the United States spreading my story and image, freely with no income.  I would usually just walk until somebody picked me up, logging everything on my tape recorder.  The first few years I would stay out for six months and return to my mother's house in San Antonio(headquarters) to type it all up for six months and then took off again for another six months and so on.  At first I stayed really consistent.  

      In 2006 my website was born(havethisbook.com) containing all of my factual documentation.  I tried to saturate everywhere I went with my message and a lot of magical happenings occurred.

      Towards the end of 2009 I tragically lost hope and threw in the towel.  After so many years of everything going my way everywhere I went, when things stopped going my way I felt cursed and I stopped documenting my life and voluntarily took my website down.  I just disappeared.  I felt like a huge failure with unrealistic goals.  I figured, "People still aren't listening.  We are so screwed.  I wish I was dead."  Depression overtook me and I returned to San Antonio.

      Let me back up a little.  See, soon after my second head injury my mother pleaded with me to get on SSI.  I adamantly protested, "Mom, I am trying to prove we don't need money to live.  I AM NOT going to sell out."  I didn't feel disabled so I doubted I would even get approved.  Well, after "quitting" my mission, on my return to my mother's she repeated that I should apply for government assistance.  I told her, "It's been a decade since my accidents, I hear you get denied a lot of times before you get it, I hear you need a lawyer, but okay, I'll try."  

       Well, my medical records must've spoken volumes because I got approved in less than a month!  Bam, $460 a month, free money, I felt.  Soon afterwards I tried living in Florida with a friend I had made, didn't work out.  I decided I was on the wrong coast and bought a bus ticket all the way to Northern California, to try and live with another friend I had made in 2007.  Didn't work out there either so I said screw it, I guess I will go back to San Antonio.  

       I never made it to San Antonio.  I ended up living in Siskiyou County, close to Mount Shasta for many years. Guess what, due to the higher cost of living in California, I got a $500 raise!  Now, I was the happiest man in the world for many, many years with no income whatsoever.  You don't think I can live high as a hog with a thousand dollars a month?  It was as if I had won the lottery! 

       I am sure you are familiar with how I met Tita.

       We met and fell in love at the headwaters of the Sacramento River, where I was helping people fill and load up their water jugs.  It was love at first joke with Tita.  I even remember the first joke I told her.  "I want to tell you about my new shoes.  I bought them from a drug dealer.  I don't know what he laced them with, but I have been tripping for days."  It was blazingly hot that day and Tita told me that she wanted to go swimming before continuing home to her father in Modesto.  I smiled and told Tita, "I have my swim trunks in my bag right now."  I showed her Jade Pond over close to the Buda Hole, I think.  I was very respectful and helped her down the precarious rocky slope down to the water.  I told her so many stories and jokes at Jade Pond.  

       Tita told me she lived in Modesto with her aging father.  I volunteered to help.

       I met Papa Chuy and helped bring joy to him before he passed.

       Soon after he died her attorney brother tried to leave Tita with nothing.  I luckily found a job on Craigslist as a pool guy helper.  In two and a half months I made $2700 to pay for a lawyer.

       I have been there for Tita as much as I can to compensate for her lack.  Due to whatever circumstances and history, I am left being the only person who shows Tita love in the town where her family lives! 

       I had been collecting jokes for many years from the Craigslist joke forum.  I eventually decided to make a free blog to share the laughs.  Once I realized how easy it was I thought, hey, I could resurrect my old website!  That is what I have done.

       I made a promise to your father that I would make sure she is taken care of, for how well she cared for him.  Since Tita stopped climbing the ladder many years ago, to care for her father, she has no savings to live off of and would be homeless without the Sonoma House.  

       I have been supporting her, even financially with my meager earnings.  When we won the Sonoma house in court, and since Tita's brothers don't care to even communicate with her I suggested the she sell the house as-is even, even if we only got half the value, pay off her debts and leave Modesto for good.  Maybe move to Mexico.  

       At first I had considered transplanting her into my loving family in Texas, but that's not likely to happen anymore.  At first she was on-board, but she's floundering now and changing her mind a lot.  Now she's back in the mindset of getting a job to fix up the house in order to rent it out and have a guaranteed income.  She has been out of the "workforce" for so long, that even with her college education, she is way out of practice.  I am not willing to wait much longer.

       In order to retrieve my backups to my old site, I just recently made a trip to San Antonio and back.  I walked/hitchhiked all the way to Indio/Coachella and luckily found a trucker who delivered me to my mother's doorstep in San Antonio for free.  I got to San Antonio in a mere ten days.  

       Tita totally flipped out being left alone for a whole month.  She almost got in a car accident!  There were like six days when I was in the LA area that I wasn't able to charge my phone anywhere and wasn't able to update her.  She thought the worst and became very fearful. 

       Without my support Tita is an emotional wreck.  I have been trying my hardest to get Tita to put her genius mind to work for me.  I want her to document her life to add another perspective to my "lunacy," to my blog.  She has been very resistant and my patience is growing thin.  Still, after all I have done for her, she still doesn't believe in my cause fully.  If she did she would sell this house and leave Modesto already.  She wouldn't care about taking a loss.  She could easily use the only thing she inherited, the last thing of value she has in the town she grew up in where nobody cares about her, to get her out of the place where she doesn't belong.  But no, her stubborn ass wants to wait around doing nothing that will realistically help her situation.  

       I thought I had found a true teammate in Tita.  I figured she'd be the perfect candidate to help me try to eliminate money.  She had been off the hamster wheel for so long.  

       But, even after the service I have provided for her, if she's not going to be as daring as I want her to be, with the house-selling solution staring her in the face, then the deal is off and I will leave her to fend for herself.  

Quite sincerely,

Victor Antonio Gruber-Vera