Family was living the dream ... until ‘We lost everything'

HARLINGEN — Cool November rain pattered against the metal roof causing a machine-gun like sound inside the two-room home on the city’s West Side at 607 W. Monroe St.

The father, who lost his foot and job after being diagnosed with diabetes this past spring, leaned against the table while his seven children and wife sit five feet away in the living room-bedroom-kitchen.

Last spring, they filled the family’s pickup with Easter baskets. They took them to Mexico, where they still have family, the former truck driver said.

“Everyone there got baskets,” said the family’s father, Gustavo Sanchez, 35.

The giving did not end there for Sanchez’s family, who now is in desperate need.

Sanchez’s wife, Maria Ortiz, would give their children $5 each during Christmas. The children, ranging from 2 to 12 years old, would buy presents and donate them to the Salvation Army’s Toys for Tots program.

“We were living the dream,” said Ortiz, who talked of the family’s misfortune as a moral test from God.

Before the health issue, their children – Noah, Angel, Gustavo, David, Shawn, Deion and Candace – had their own beds at the family’s three-bedroom trailer at the Southern Breeze Mobile Park.

Sanchez did not need to put an extra burden on his disabled mother for a place to live.

They did not need to ask their family for money to buy their kids’ school clothes. Or raise money by selling barbecue plates on Monroe Street.

“We lost everything,” Ortiz said.

Sanchez will run off Medicaid at the end of the month, he said. He filed an appeal in probate court for disability. The court originally ruled that because he is young and was healthy, he should not get the money.

“We’re not expecting that to change after the appeal,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez cannot work because he cannot afford a special spring shoe that can allow him to walk without pain.

Ortiz could not get a job while Sanchez receiving Medicaid, she said. If she took a job, they would not qualify.

She can work now, but it won’t be enough to sustain the lifestyle.

So they’ll get by on food stamps and a child support check Ortiz receives from her first husband.

As for Christmas, the family didn’t ask for anything specific. When pressed, Ortiz mentioned clothes for her children.

The only mention of Christmas presents came in a previous exchange between the only daughter, Candace, and her mother.

“I don’t want any toys, just a house.”