Hi,
I’m not quite sure how to start this. I suppose the beginning is the best place. Right now, my kids, dogs and I are in such a scary place. We’re desperate for someone, anyone to hold their hand out and help pull us out of this nightmare.
I guess I should explain what’s going on. I’ll do my best to try to condense the story so as not to bore you to tears. I’m a single mother to 3 great kids. A few years ago, my father got cancer and my mom couldn’t cope. She had lots of medical issues herself and caring for dad alone and the thought of losing him was, understandably, too much for her. She needed help. I’ve always been of the opinion that your parents spend years and years loving and raising you – not to mention all of the sacrifices they made for you- that the very least you can do in return is be there to care for them when the time comes. So I moved my kids and I into my parents house to help care for dad and give mom some relief and peace of mind. Dad went downhill super fast after his diagnosis. He started shedding weight quickly and his skin had turned a horrible yellow orange. One morning, about a month and a half after his diagnosis, he woke up in a lot of pain. He spent the day doubled over and refusing to go to the hospital. Later in the afternoon, we gave him some pain meds and he went to try to lay down for a bit. A couple hours later, I made dinner and sent my daughter to see if he was awake and if so, did he want to try to eat something. Not even a minute later she ran in the kitchen and said Pop’s not breathing. We rushed to his room where we saw he was absolutely not breathing. Mom called 911 and they coached me through giving him chest compressions. The ambulance got there and took him to the hospital and hooked him up to life support and sent us home. The following morning we got a call from a doctor asking to come to the hospital for a meeting. When we got there, the doctor sat us down and told us that dad went without breathing for too long and that he had no brain activity. Mom was given papers to sign to turn of the machines keeping him alive. We lost dad that day and, to a certain degree, mom too. She was never the same after that. She didn’t know how to and didn’t want to go on without dad after having him in her life for more than 40 years.
Dad had left us with no life insurance to bury him and, as it turns out, a mountain of way behind bills. We had to do a quick, no frills funeral on a payment plan. Then we found out about the bills, specifically the mortgage. We found out that dad hadn’t been paying the mortgage for months. All the utilities were behind. We were in danger of the house being foreclosed on. Dad always started his mornings with a cup of coffee and some cigarettes. He’d grab his provisions and a newspaper or a puzzle book and sit outside for a couple hours. He was always the one that got the mail. We figured out that his morning routine was just a way for him to make sure that he got to the mail before anyone else in the house. He always insisted on being the one that sent out the payments for the bills. So imagine our surprise when we actually got to see the bills that were coming in and finding out that we were drowning and didn’t even know it. Dad got social security, Mom had a job and I was always working too. We handed over whatever he said he needed for bills and ,as far as we knew, they were being paid.
So there we were trying our best to pull ourselves out the mess dad had left us in. As I said before, mom had already had a lot of medical issues herself. With dad dying and the stress of trying and failing to keep up with the bills, her health really started to deteriorate. She already had COPD, emphysema, diabetes and 1 heart attack under her belt. She wound up having a 2nd heart attack a few months after dad passed. Then her breathing started to get worse. She was relying on the oxygen she had refused to use for so long more and more. Then she got pneumonia. I had to call her an ambulance where once again the worst case scenario played out. The had to put her in a medically induced coma and put her on a breathing machine. They tried a couple of times to wake her up and get her off the breathing machine with no success. They finally sat me down and told me it was time to make a decision. They said there was no way she was going to be able to breathe on her own again and signing the papers to turn the machines off was a mercy and the right thing to do. We lost mom that day in the icu just 2 rooms away from where dad had passed.
Mom had a very, very small life insurance policy through her job that thankfully covered her funeral. A couple of weeks later, a certified letter came saying the house was in foreclosure. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The house wasn’t in my name and I didn’t have the enormous amount of money they wanted to keep it from foreclosing. I cut every corner possible and kept the kids and I on a strict budget. I saved as much as possible to get together enough for a deposit and 1st and last month’s rent for an apartment.
I spent so long searching for an apartment. I was even asking anyone I so much as exchanged pleasantries with if they knew of any reasonable apartments available. They were either way out my budget and/or they wanted you to make 3-4 times the rent a month before even considering you. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just a regular 2 bedroom apartment that had at least a somewhat reasonable price a month. The time came on August 31st of this year that we had to move out. I still hadn’t had any luck finding us a place so I found us a motel to stay at in the meantime. They even allowed pets so our 2 dogs could come with us which was a relief. Unfortunately, the motel was in a more rural part because the ones in the city that we’re from are way out of our budget. I don’t have a car so that meant commuting quite a ways to get back and forth from my job everyday. Eventually, I couldn’t afford to spend money on the commute anymore. The money I had saved up for an apartment was rapidly dwindling down to pay for our stay in the motel. I would up having to leave my job and try to find one that was in walking distance from the motel.
So that brings us to now. We completely ran out of the money I had saved. I have absolutely nothing left to pay for our room. We are officially homeless and out on the street. Luckily, I finally landed a new job close to the motel just the other day. That’s awesome and I’m so grateful that some money will be coming in in the future. The reason I’m here begging for help is because until I start getting that regular paycheck, we’re completely homeless. We have nowhere to go and nobody to turn to for help. It’s so cold here during the day and absolutely freezing at night. I’m hoping that there’s somebody that comes across this and can help us to pay for a motel room until I my paycheck starts coming in. We would need enough for about 3 weeks because this new job pays every 2 weeks and I don’t start until until December 7th. It cost $575 a week to stay at the motel. I can’t leave my kids by themselves somewhere outside while I’m at work with just the dogs to protect them but I also can’t not work or we’ll never get out of this. I’m so lost right now. I don’t know what to do anymore.
So there you have it. We’ve come to the end of the story now. I know it was long and if you made it the whole way, thank you so much for taking the time. If anyone can help us at all, even a little bit, we’d be eternally grateful. At this point, any night we spend indoors is a blessing.
Here’s my paypal.me link: https://paypal.me/fookinpayme?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US
(Please ignore the name I chose. I made my paypal link a long time ago and tried to make it funny.)
Once again thank you for taking the time to read. Happy Holidays to you and yours.