Tammy is proving she can do it
“I needed to prove to myself I could do this”
When a beloved family member is murdered, how do you recover from it?
For Tammy and her loving family, the shocking death of a favorite uncle ripped apart their hearts and left open wounds. Tammy, who had fought back depression for years, had to struggle hard to overcome the wrenching loss of Uncle James: “He was a special person,” she says. “We had a very close-knit family, and he was a real presence in my life. I’ve had to continually release it to God, but even thirty years later, his absence has deeply affected me.”
The family’s turmoil touched off a domino effect in Tammy’s own life. She battled waves of depression. Her marriage ended in divorce. A new man came in her life, but the only lasting effect of that relationship was the move from Texas to Colorado in March 2020 — the same month that Covid-19 virtually shut down the country. “It was like the Apocalypse,” Tammy says.
It was mass destruction of her plans, too. She has a very good work history, but in the new Covid world, jobs had dried up. In the “every man for himself” panic which followed, her boyfriend disappeared. Tammy was crushed — “He was detrimental to my heart” — and she began sleeping in her van. She couldn’t go home because she had already put her parents through a lot. “Before I was married I had always gone straight to mom and daddy for what I needed, but now I wanted to prove to myself I could do this.”
She knew that to find a good job, she needed stability and a safe living environment. She found a temporary shelter that referred her to the Julia Greeley Home where she began re-ordering her priorities and setting firm goals. “I feel so much peace here,” she says. “It’s given me the quiet space I needed to reflect and pray, and think about the next path I should take. I learn from the other women, too. Most of all I have the stability and quiet I need while I reconcile all the psychological things I’ve been going through.”
Growing up, her family had passed down generations of skills in mechanics, carpentry, construction, and woodworking. Before long she found work in a store that specialized in those skills. Now, the path seems to be opening up more all the time: “I don’t know what God was doing when he led me to Julia Greeley except it’s been a huge blessing to me.”
Tammy has become interested in possibly pursuing business courses through our scholarship partner, the Ward Family Foundation. Depression has lifted, and her parents and family are amazed at the changes they see in her: “Now they see me working and doing so much better, and they’re saying, ‘You’re really strong.'” Tammy has to wonder at that. “I don’t feel strong,” she says, with a smile. “But then, I guess we don’t always feel like what we are.”