Sometimes the family and purpose you’re meant for arrive through the cracks that nearly broke you. Six months before they met him, Jaci learned she was pregnant even though she had an IUD. The shock quickly turned into joy. Their family of four started dreaming about becoming five, until doctors found the pregnancy was ectopic.
To save her life, she received a medication that ended the pregnancy. The physical and emotional crash that followed was brutal. Her hair thinned, the weeks dragged, and Jaci cried on the couch daily, asking why their hearts had been opened only to be broken. At the same time, her work as a U.S. immigration attorney brought her to a devastating asylum trial. It was the last straw. She stepped away from her career, feeling crushed by a world that could witness suffering and still turn away.
Looking for air and a reason to keep going, she moved to the Dominican Republic with her family. She waited tables, taught English, and tried to stitch herself back together on the beach. Her husband said she would find her way back, but she wasn’t sure. One afternoon at lunch, they noticed a boy tossing his oversized flip-flops into the waves and swimming after them. When he passed their table, they offered him a slice of pizza. He sat with quiet manners and a bright, unforgettable smile.
Something in her chest lit up, as if her heart knew him. Over the following months, he spent time with their family when he wasn’t shining shoes. He pushed their kids on the swings, helped choose picnic spots, and laughed with them even when words were hard to find.
He spoke Haitian Kreyol, but they mostly spoke English. Somehow, they understood each other with bits of Spanish, French, and gestures. They taught him simple math and arranged a few lessons with their children’s French tutor.
One day, his mother came to their door with a small bag of clothes and a toothbrush. She asked if they would take him in and help him build a future. The practical answer was no, too many complications, too many unknowns. But her heart had already said yes. From her work, she knew that getting him to the United States for school would be difficult. Still, he received a visa with the help of a congressman and a senator. He landed in the High Rockies in winter, a world away from the Caribbean shore. He couldn’t read, write, or speak English initially, but he never complained. He studied relentlessly and learned fast.
Years later, that same boy is a young man studying business and engineering in college and training at a soccer academy, chasing a professional dream. Education transformed his life; with it, he has been able to support people he loves in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The circle widened outward because one door opened.
Jaci still has days when the loss catches up with her. She lets the tears come, then looks around at the unlikely life that grew from that ache. The four became a family of five, but not as they had imagined. The grief that made her doubt her purpose also pushed her toward it. She won a case she once thought unwinnable, found the courage to return to her calling, and moved to France near Geneva with her family.
From there, they expanded their U.S.-based practice into Europe, focusing on human rights, global mobility, and immigration law, the work she dreamed of as a child. Their firm now helps people seeking new beginnings in the United States or Europe and has even prepared a human rights complaint to the United Nations. They try to keep theirs open in a world that sometimes shuts its eyes.
