Just to update you Re: My wife and Sen. Kelly's involvement

[DFW]

54. With all the despair the "no news" has brought so far

I can understand that the ones (in AZ and China) going through this are being put through an emotional ringer. I guess I bear some of the blame, having tried to use what contacts I had (pretty much Mark and Gabby) to get something in motion.

Not ever having had to walk a mile--or even an inch--in the shoes of someone being put through this, it is not my place to offer judgment. I probably would have packed my bags and left long ago, although the prospect of earning my living by playing my guitar on Chinese streets with my hat out would have probably stopped me cold in my tracks.

The only one ray of hope I can offer at this point is to point out that Mark DID call me early on with a progress report. This now going back over a month, but he had taken the trouble to research the case, with all its ups and downs and mistakes made (inexcusable treatment of the wife in Seattle airport detention being one of them, but not the only one).

If the case had been deemed hopeless, Mark would have called me to tell me that. Of that I am certain. As one who has been called on to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to acquire EU residence with a work permit (to do my US job, no less!), and pay German taxes on top of US taxes just to get NOTHING in return, I have been in the trenches. Nothing like AZLD has gone through, but fighting a government bureaucracy in ANY country bigger than Liechtenstein is an uphill battle where the end of the fight must seem like the peak of Mt. Everest seemed to Edmund Hillary when he started out from the foothills.

But maddening and lonely as it may seem, and it definitely does, and probably will for a while to come, I will not believe that Mark's office has given up until he tells me so, and he will, if it's the case. He is not the kind who gives up easily, and he may be covering his bases for when he has to confront some bureaucrat who tells him, "well, you first should have done this and that," so that he can say, "well, as a matter of fact, we DID do all that, and it led to nothing, so now YOU do something unless you want to see your name in an angry letter on my letterhead to your superiors." I don't know how all this works in this kind of case, but I DO know in general that even when it DOES work out, if it concerns a government, it takes about twenty times as long as it should.

Remember Bill Clinton's comment when he said he found out his foundation could get the same charitable work done using 4% of the available funds for expenses, whereas when he was in office, the government agencies ate up 25% of the funds for expenses. When asked why there was such a difference, he answered, "because we were STUPID, that's why!"

When dealing with the government--especially one full of useless Trump appointees--you are going to run into a lot of indifference and a lot of stupid. I can't blame someone for losing faith or losing hope, and it sure isn't my place to tell someone in AZLD's position to keep on holding on. I have a support system in place in case something like that happens to me. He does not. We can lend a sympathetic ear, but we don't have the power to move the unmovable bureaucratic mountain.

The one thing I would hold on to is that Mark has NOT said he has exhausted his possibilities. If he calls and says that, THEN it's time to give up. The despair is big, and it is powerful, but it only wins when the last line of defense collapses. Until Mark calls and says so, it just hasn't happened--not yet, anyway. "Hurry up and wait" is about the MOST maddening piece of advice anyone can receive. It's what my wife received when she was diagnosed with "the murderer" form of cancer that practically no woman survives. We just were in physical and emotional limbo, and that was for less than a week, and we were both in the same city. The cancer specialist finally announced that he thought she might be that one patient in ten thousand that survived the "murderer," and now, five years later, she still is.

I understand the despair, but I wouldn't give in to it until Mark calls with the bad news..IF he does. If he doesn't, then he hasn't given up. That may be NO comfort. With all the cyclone of work going on in the US Senate at the moment, it should come as no surprise if Mark (and every other Democratic Senator) is concentrating on saving the country first. But that doesn't mean this case has been tossed into some waste bin.

I perfectly understand giving up at this point. But I wouldn't. I know, I know--that's easy for me to say.

But it's the ONLY thing I can say.