CHAPTER 1
By his death, he gave me life.
As I watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, I knew the moment was coming. I wasn't afraid; I was grateful and humbled by a miracle akin to watching a newborn emerge into the world. I knew that when he took that final breath, he would breathe life into my soul. I had never been more certain of anything. And as I waited patiently to bear witness to this most miraculous transition from earth to heaven, I cried. I was overcome by a transformative peace, knowing that his purpose on earth was fulfilled in thirty-nine years.
When I was twenty-three years old, I recall my mom and my sister crying hard as they sat on my bed and watched me shove my entire wardrobe into black garbage bags as if I was a fugitive on the run. I was overly excited, not because I was leaving my chaotic home to live with my boyfriend, but because I was insanely in love and needed him like air; after less than two months of dating, we were living in delicious sin.
John-Marlon captured my heart initially by taking me on fabulous vacations and buying sprees. He bought us his-and-her wave runners and he bought me a car. He engulfed me with more love than I knew what to do with. I was in complete bliss, and I could no longer envision my life without this man. The gifts were great fun, but I was madly addicted to him. I had acquired the childlike wonderment that I went without as a kid, but I also took great pleasure in watching him live every moment as if it were his last.
As our relationship quickly approached the one-year mark, my feelings began to shift. I was so blinded by his tsunami of love that I failed to realize he was unwittingly becoming suffocated by what I thought was my codependency. Without notice, he broke free of the invisible chains that kept us interlocked physically and emotionally. In the process, he broke my heart. I was no longer his exclusive obsession.
I felt cheated. Although it was quite clear he loved me to no end, I was replaced ostensibly by random guy time, basketball, golf, fishing, paintballing, or just late-night drinks with anyone. His actions were becoming alarming because there was no rhyme or reason to his thinking. He was becoming a hard nut to crack. His obsessions and interests began to trump our relationship, and I felt more and more isolated in my own home. I didn't have a name for his behavior, but it was quite painful to believe that this issue was an issue he would have for life; this was not just a typical man thing that would come and go.
I loved that man more than anything, but I struggled with keeping up with his pace. He was a runaway train, and my entire marriage was about keeping up or being left behind. I now dreaded the very things I fell in love with—his passion, his impulsivity, his crazy spending, his generosity, and even his lack of communication. Yep, that's what I said—his lack of communication!
Our love and lust for one another ran so deep that it was all we apparently needed to sustain our relationship, I thought, but of course, I was insanely wrong. Not until three years into our relationship did I recognize that he lacked normal back-and-forth conversation, and it was a devastating blow because I realized for the first time how different he was. There was an uneasy feeling in my gut when I finally came to realize that all of our conversations were one-sided. They were all about his fixations, interests, and passions—never about my interests. I hadn't noticed sooner because I was willingly sucked into his vortex of euphoria—and that high was higher than anything I had ever experienced.
Life was grand, but it wasn't reality by any means! We were living in a wonderland. When real life came screaming out into the world at eight pounds, eleven ounces, reality slapped me hard in the face. Now with a baby in our lives, I realized I had two boys to raise.
In September 2000, I had a precious newborn, but I had also acquired postpartum depression. As I spiraled downward into my despair, my anger and rage grew. His insatiable appetite for more of everything and anything grew with my misery. He bought a boat, and then just a few months later, he decided to buy another boat when he discovered that the first one was too small to host his truckload of friends. We were a lower-middle-class family with two kids now, and I was not only embarrassed by his lack of judgment, but I had to start charging frantically on my credit cards to make up for the dysfunction in our family.
Once we had our third child, I began to suspect what was wrong with him. I considered divorcing him, as the thought of fixing him was too overwhelming; instead, I decided to keep quiet and deal with his erratic behaviors on a case-by-case basis.
In 2007, my son was officially diagnosed with Asperger's. I knew that I had to let John-Marlon know that he was on the spectrum too. Yep, I self-diagnosed my husband. I was fed up with living in a wild zoo, and I was about to drop the bomb that he was not as perfect and wonderful as he thought he was.
Asperger's syndrome is a developmental disorder that affects a person's ability to socialize and communicate effectively with others. Children with Asperger's syndrome typically exhibit social awkwardness and an all-absorbing interest in specific topics.
Doctors group Asperger's syndrome with other conditions that are called autistic spectrum disorders or pervasive developmental disorders. These disorders all involve problems with social skills and communication. Asperger's syndrome is generally thought to be at the milder end of this spectrum. (Mayo Clinic)
In 2009, when I first approached him about seeking a diagnosis, he laughed and declined my "gracious" offer. However, after a few months of incessant nagging, I was able to get him to agree. He was then somewhat curious to see if what I had proposed was true.
He jokingly said, "I will get checked out for Asperger's—as long as you get checked out for crazy."
We both laughed, and I responded, "Sure, whatever you want."
Our laughter was short-lived, though. Weeks later, he walked into the evaluation a man filled with great pride and swelling with machismo, but he walked out with head bowed down, completely emasculated. The diagnosis and the process destroyed him.
After six hours of evaluation, all of his weaknesses were brought to light. Although I was not in the room for the actual evaluation, I held my ear to the closed door to grasp snippets of the exchange behind it. From what I heard, he couldn't repeat simple passages back to the evaluator, and he had serious trouble reading just a few sentences. I was devastated; I knew he had a learning disability that went undiagnosed as a child, but this evaluation was horrific. It was painful for him to become aware of what he otherwise had suppressed or was completely unaware of.
When I received the official written report a few weeks later, its conclusions were difficult for even me to believe. He was given a battery of tests, and instead of detailing the results of each of them, I will relate a brief overview of his neuropsychological status:
Conversational skills are restricted. In addition, John-Marlon is easily influenced by others into doing things at times when judgment should prevail. Reasonable changes in routine are not always tolerated. Sensory issues are also present. John is not always able to recognize and apologize for his own mistakes. He is not savvy enough to fully recognize and avoid dangerous individuals or situations. John-Marlon has difficulty coming up with the proper words to express his thoughts quickly. Academic skills are delayed in all areas.
I did not have the heart to share the report with him. How could I disclose, that on paper, he had the skills of a child in elementary school? I just couldn't.
So much of him began to make sense to me. He wasn't ignoring me; he just couldn't maintain meaningful communication. All this time, I had been trying to reason with a six-year-old trapped in a man's body. I was left speechless at these discoveries, yet the revelations drew me closer to my husband. I understood his unique way of being, and I had great compassion for how far he had come in life despite extraordinary obstacles.
He once owned three furniture stores at the same time. He was a successful businessman who paid off my debts several times over with barely the ability to read or write. I thought this was pretty miraculous, to say the least. He overcompensated by becoming self-employed, by his athleticism, his sarcasm, by being a man's man, by being a great lover, and most importantly, by engaging in a busy social life, which in hindsight meant he wasn't social by any means.
He was savvy enough to mask his weakness by pretending to be social. He would love to be around groups of people in loud places such nightclubs where there would hardly be any real communication. He would constantly host barbeques at our home—another situation where he didn't have to communicate. Instead, he would man the grill, serving people all day, pleasing them, making them smile, cracking awkward jokes, and when he had enough of the action, he would excuse himself to simply watch television in private. He showed brilliance by fitting into a world that he truly did not feel comfortable in.
When I did review some aspects of the report findings, he understood why he dropped out of school, why he had problems communicating, and why he lacked empathy. He was befallen by an avalanche of bittersweet information as he saw himself clearly for the first time in thirty-five years.
"I always thought everyone around me was an idiot. Now I know I'm the idiot," he responded.
My heart broke. I knew John-Marlon had a beautiful, brilliant, and creative mind, but I couldn't see how I would raise his spirits when I had just singlehandedly crushed him.
Post-diagnosis, I thought he would embrace the deficits and be willing to work on them to become a better husband, but that was so stupid of me. How could I ever expect this from him, knowing he was not wired to do so? And instead of helping him, I hurt him. It has taken a great deal to forgive myself for knowing that I did the best I could with the cards I had been dealt. The diagnosis literally destroyed him because he couldn't change into the person I wanted him to be. He now had a "fuck-it" attitude, and with that, I entered the most traumatic period of my life.
John-Marlon was dealing with great stress at work. The stock market crash of 2008 was finally catching up with the mom-and-pop shops. His overhead was $30,000, and every month, it was a struggle just to break even. He never expressed his great concern verbally; he only showed it through his terrible addictions and obsessions.
The strain of a failing business, plus the Asperger's diagnosis, had clearly taken him over the edge. I, too, was on the verge of losing my mind. John-Marlon was so careless and carefree about life that he would party two to three times a week with his so-called friends—anyone who would call him—just because he could. Heck, he had Asperger's and couldn't control himself. It became a little vicious cycle.
I would spend my nights on our bathroom floor, screaming, aching in pain for my husband to come back home. He would turn off his phone and never respond to my texts or calls. I felt like he despised me, and I hated myself. I felt I was the cause of the whole mess, even though I was smart enough to know that this outcome was not my fault.
Whenever he walked through the door in the wee hours of the morning, I would thank God and promise to be more patient. But I failed miserably. I couldn't accept John-Marlon's lack of respect for me. I couldn't accept him. In the midst of my pain, I would write emails—some to myself and some to him—because it was the next best thing I could do to losing my mind. I couldn't call him and curse him out because he knew better than to take my crazy calls.
I resented his Asperger's deeply. I hated him for keeping me a prisoner in my own country, in my own life, and in my own head. Yes, you read correctly: a prisoner in my own country. Let me help you understand by sharing the last sentence of his clinical diagnosis: At a point, the Suazas may want to seek legal advice regarding a legal matter that occurred a number of years ago to determine if it were possible to have a more favorable outcome in light of new information.
You see, when John-Marlon was seventeen years old, he got into legal trouble, and that trouble would affect his life and destroy my soul from the moment I decided to be his wife.
The crime: breaking a window with a screwdriver and leaving with a box.
The evidence: Two guys (one was John-Marlon) were picked up off the street, brought back by officers to the scene of the crime, and handcuffed in front of a police car while they waited to be identified by the witness. The elderly witness was then brought down to the building lobby to identify them from inside the lobby window, as "the assailants" remained handcuffed against a police car. She refused to go outside and take a closer look. She responded, "That's them." It was enough for an arrest.
After weeks of a hearing, John-Marlon was convicted of a felony as a minor.
Oh, how I dreaded putting this in print, but it is critical to my story to share for many, many reasons. When I married John-Marlon, I knew he had this felony conviction, and I accepted his truth that he did not commit this crime, but I did not truly understand the injustice that was done until I got hold of the transcripts. I had become obsessed with learning about Asperger's, and I began to understand how and why he ended up with a record. John-Marlon had the communication skills of a six-year-old—and he avoided confrontation in life just as he avoided them in our bedroom fights.
I could understand how he would agree to anything so that he could get out of it as fast as he could—whether he was guilty or not. It then became my life's mission to clear his name and rid us of both of the darkest secret that few knew—but had haunted us as if the world did.
As immigration laws rapidly changed since his conviction in 1991, so did the consequences for convicted felons who were not US citizens. Since John-Marlon was born in Colombia and never acquired US citizenship, he could be deportable just for breathing the wrong way. He was a legal resident of the United States, but none of that mattered with the new laws in place. Because of that, we lived every day like fugitives, except we smiled and looked like your all-American family. We literally lived a nightmare every waking moment, hoping that John-Marlon did not run a traffic light or have a social drink, get behind the wheel, and get stopped by the police.
Our three kids could lose their father should he be shipped off to Colombia, and for that very reason, it became my life's work to get his record expunged or cleared altogether. I was relentless in contacting attorney after attorney, and I spent my nights researching and highlighting his court transcript in preparation for this groundbreaking case I was bound to take straight to the Supreme Court—or so I thought. I was thinking big; it gave me comfort in my misery.
Every attorney we contacted agreed we had good reason to want to reopen the case, but all felt strongly that a twenty-year-old case would be very difficult to get in front of a judge. I was haunted by fear, but I used that fear to never accept "no" as an answer. When one attorney wasn't assertive enough, I found another attorney. I finally found one immigration attorney who felt strongly enough to consider our case.
The year was 2010. I held one of the most demanding jobs I'd ever had. At once, I managed a full-time job, raised three children, fought for the educational needs of my son with autism, dealt with John-Marlon's excessive behavior, and played lawyer—all of which led me into an abyss of depression and resentment toward everyone. I forgot how to be a wife, a mother, and a human being. More often than not, I forgot how to breathe.
John-Marlon continued to live his life freely as if he didn't have a care. He sometimes questioned my obsession with reopening his case, but at the same time, he had the wits to thank me for doing so—but not before spraying on Eternity cologne for yet another night on the town with the fellas.
