My name is Heather, and I am trying to raise the funds for my mother’s funeral. She was born in September of 1958 and had me when she was just 21. She raised me as a single mother in the ’80s, and for a very long time, it was just her and me. I don’t know how old I was when she met the man that I would call Dad for the rest of my life, but I know how old I was when everything changed. A drunk driver hit her when she was on her way to pick me up from the babysitter’s house after she got off work; I was 7. Things were never the same. Even after she was finally able to come home months later, there were many things that she was unable to do anymore. So, at the age of 7, I became a part-time caregiver for my mom, right along with my Dad.
I never stopped being a caregiver for my mom, even after losing my dad in 2014, and even though we fought about things. She never stopped being a caregiver for me, either; even when increasing problems with one knee led to her going to a skilled nursing facility for what was supposed to be physical rehabilitation this past year. But Mom never got to come home again. She caught pneumonia twice before the end of last year but caught it again at the beginning of this month. Mom left me on Sunday, May 25 of this year, after being hospitalized for nearly three weeks. I was her fiercest advocate during that time, getting the doctors to run tests that they were reluctant to run, and trying to run down every answer for why she so swiftly became unresponsive four to five days after her admittance. I was the one that had to point out to the nurse that one of her pupils was bigger than the other, and I was the one who continually let them know if her bedding had to be changed, because from May 9th until the day that she died, I did not leave her side.
I still don’t know what actually caused her death, and I am still seeking answers, but I do not believe that Mom had life insurance. Certainly none that I was aware of. She was on SSI and disability, but because she had not been able to work for very many years prior to the accident, her income wouldn’t have supported the extra expense of a life insurance policy, and that was a conversation that we had many times after my Dad passed.
So I am asking for some help, because I want her to have the funeral she deserved, and cremated afterwards. She and I only talked about things like this but never did she signal a preference for a lot of things, but I want to give her something that I know that she would be happy with. It is the very least that I owe her.
