Salvation Army a blessing for widow, kids

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Andre Prosvetov spent years providing for his family as a long-distance truck driver, and as his daughters grew, they’d say the same bedtime prayer on the many nights when he was gone: “Please God, bless our dad. He is away from home.”

One night when Andre was between trips, he joined the girls for their bedtime routine. And although he was right in the room, they said their familiar prayer: “Please God, bless our dad. He is away from home.”

Andre was crushed. And that very night, his wife, Maria, recalls, he decided to trade long-distance truck driving for short-distance driving so he could be home with his family every night.

“I told him so many times, ‘The kids are growing up and they don’t see you.’” she remembers. “But that night changed everything.”

She sees that night as a blessing now. That’s because Andre died suddenly of a stroke last July, at age 42, leaving her alone to care for the couple’s three children: Milana, 7; Angelina, 5; Erik, 10 months. Without Andre’s epiphany, Prosvetov says, he would have missed out on so many memories with his girls and his new baby boy during his final two years of life.

Prosvetov says her loss is still too fresh to talk about, and she’s trying to hold on to the family’s traditions and schedule — weekly swimming lessons for the girls and Russian school on weekends. (She is from Latvia; her husband was from Russia.)

Prosvetov is hoping to keep the mood upbeat at Christmas, but she knows it will be hard.

This year, Milana, Angelina and Erik are three of about 7,300 children registered to receive toys and clothes through the Salvation Army’s Christmas program, which matches children in need with anonymous donors who buy the gifts. Some 1,400 senior citizens will also receive gifts this Christmas.

In cases where donors don’t step up, Charlotte Observer readers cover the expense by giving to the Empty Stocking Fund. Money raised by last year’s Empty Stocking Fund allowed the Salvation Army to purchase 6,056 toys and 456 gifts for low-income seniors.

Each child will also receive a new backpack this year, so Empty Stocking funds were used to purchase 8,000 backpacks and 20,000 small items to stuff in them. Children in the program range in age from infants to 12 years old.

Andre had suffered a stroke last May, and after some time in the hospital he was told to stay out of work because of high blood pressure that would skyrocket out of control.

He eventually went back to work with the help of medications, but on July 19 a massive second stroke took his life. He was transported from his home by ambulance, but died by the time he reached the hospital. His own father had died of a stroke at the same age, Prosvetov says.

She and the kids are all still deep in the throes of grief. “It’s hard for them. Sometimes they talk about him but I ask them don’t do this. It’s so soon. It’s so hard for everybody,” Prosvetov says.

Without Andre’s paycheck, Prosvetov is trying to make ends meet on just $740 a month in Social Security payments and food stamps.

Prosvetov said she sees the Salvation Army’s Christmas program as one in a string of blessings that has helped her family through this painful time.

Her husband’s family and the church community have supported her in ways that seem “supernatural,” she says. “People come to me with exactly the amount of money I need for bills, without knowing how much I need,” she says.

“What I see is that God has blessed us. That’s the only explanation I can tell you,” she says.

She knows she’ll need to find a job soon to be able to support her children. For now, she stays home with baby Erik while the girls are in elementary school.

She hopes to start work cleaning offices on the weekends, when a friend can watch her children at little or no cost.

The girls are thankful for even the smallest items, mom says. Milana loves arts and crafts, and enjoys spending time drawing. Angelina is Prosvetov’s “girlie girl,” and is into Barbies, and fashion, and dolls.

Baby Erik is already wearing size 18-month clothes and standing. He could use some warm clothes, since all the family’s hand-me-downs are girl clothes.

Prosvetov and the children will decorate the tree in the same corner in the living room that they always have. She’s already had a photographer friend come over to take their family Christmas card portrait, and everyone managed to smile despite the fact that their father and husband was missing.

She’ll try to keep the family’s Christmas Day traditions the same: The children will wake up and gleefully open their presents under the tree. Then, Prosvetov will host a big Christmas dinner for her children and her husband’s brother, his wife and their four kids.

Prosvetov has no relatives of her own in Charlotte. But Andre’s family has been extremely supportive, she says, with Andre’s brother taking her girls out for “family night” each Monday after school.

Prosvetov looks at videos on her cellphone of her husband dressed up as Santa last year for the extended family’s Christmas celebration. He loved putting on the beard and the soft fluffy costume and entertaining the children each year, she says.

“He loved making everybody laugh.”