As everybody I have a lot of stories to tell but I chose one that I would like to remember all my life.

I used to live in Brazil and even though I had a good job and very nice children, I was unhappy because I didn’t have a good marriage. When my children grew up, I got divorced and decided to come to America. That was my greatest dream.

I tried to get the United States Visa, but unfortunately the consul refused me the visa. I had to wait for three months before I could apply for a visa again. Once more he refused to give it to me. I became very disappointed, so I decided to go to Europe instead. I went to Spain, France, and Portugal where I met a very interesting guy who was also divorced. A few months later we got married.

We stayed in Portugal for three years, but I had to go back to Brazil to restart my job; otherwise I would have lost it. The next three years we lived in Brazil until I retired. After that we were planning to go to Portugal to visit my husband’s family and I told the ticket agent about my dream to come to America. He said: “Why don’t you do an air triangle?” I said: “Can you tell me what it means?” He said, “You go from Brazil to Portugal, then you go from Portugal to the United States of America and finally you come back to Brazil with the same ticket. You just pay a little bit more.”

We had reserved an open ticket to Portugal, which was valid for six months, so we didn’t have to pay extra for the air triangle trip. Neither my husband nor I had the United States Visa and the ticket agent advised me to go to the consulate again to try to get one. I couldn’t lose any time because we were scheduled to fly three days later.

I went to Rio de Janeiro to try once more. It was the third time. I was apprehensive. My old passport had expired and contained two “refused” stamps. Of course I showed my new passport to the consul and when he opened it he asked me to show him my old one. I got scared, but what could I do? I gave it to him. He leafed through it and told me: “Oh! You have already been to Europe! Good! You have a nice trip.” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.

Three days later we were in Portugal. We stayed there for five months. My husband got his United States Visa and we came to America and never went back. I really believe in fate. I told my husband, “It was written – I had to get you first so we could come to America together.”

Lucky Sena Soares has been here for six years. She is from Brazil. She works in a nursing home as a CNA.  Her future goals are to remodel her house and to retire, but mainly she wants to speak English fluently. She is an intermediate ESOL student at QCC/Assabet Program.