My Mother's Dream
Donation protected
I'm writing this to tell you about one of the most amazing people I know: my mother, Stella.
She was an Army brat, and grew up all over the place. She wasn't really in one place long enough for anywhere to feel like home - except for Germany. She and her family lived there for nine years, but I'll come back to that later.
She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was twelve, and had to learn how to handle it largely by herself.
My father died when I was three months old, leaving my mother widowed at 33 with an infant and a three year old to raise by herself. Though we lived perilously close to the poverty line for the majority of my childhood, my mother made sure my brother and I never wanted for anything. We may not have had the newest clothes or all the toys we wanted, but we were happy, healthy, and so loved. Throughout my childhood, my mother was always volunteering her time to help other people. She volunteered in classrooms daily, served on city council, and even ran an after-school tutoring group for at-risk youth.
When I was nine years old, my mother remarried, and it turned out to be the biggest mistake she could have made. She had unknowingly married a drug-abusing pedophile who racked up huge amounts of debt in her name. After their divorce when I was fourteen, my mother was left once again a single mother who had to pick up the pieces of her life and provide for her two children - and she did an amazing job.
In January of 2010, my mother remarried again - which she had never particularly planned to do, as marriage had been sort of soured from her past experience, but she also hadn't planned on meeting someone like Pat. After three years of dating, she said "yes" to a very patient Pat, and luckily for us, this time around, her husband is the kindest, most open-hearted man I know, and I am grateful every day that he and my mother found each other.
Still, a couple of years into their marriage, my mother and stepfather were forced to declare bankruptcy (due to the debt from my first stepfather - are you noticing a pattern here?), and since then, much of their income has gone towards paying off debt that isn't even theirs.
Throughout all of this, my mother - my amazingly kind, giving mother - put herself back through school, earning her Bachelor's and Master's in social work so that she could dedicate her life to what she had always been doing anyway: helping other people.
Now comes the part this has all been leading up to - my goal. My mother has always said that the happiest she has ever been was when she was living in Germany when she was a child. She has wanted to go back for as long as I can remember, and now the perfect opportunity has come: it's her high school reunion, and it's in Berlin. She has been saving for two years, but due to unforseen expenses (medical bills, last minute plane tickets to see her dying father, etc), has fallen far short of the money needed.
So I'm turning to you, citizens of the internet. Please, if you have anything you can spare, help me make my mother's dream come true. Help me get her back home.
She was an Army brat, and grew up all over the place. She wasn't really in one place long enough for anywhere to feel like home - except for Germany. She and her family lived there for nine years, but I'll come back to that later.
She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was twelve, and had to learn how to handle it largely by herself.
My father died when I was three months old, leaving my mother widowed at 33 with an infant and a three year old to raise by herself. Though we lived perilously close to the poverty line for the majority of my childhood, my mother made sure my brother and I never wanted for anything. We may not have had the newest clothes or all the toys we wanted, but we were happy, healthy, and so loved. Throughout my childhood, my mother was always volunteering her time to help other people. She volunteered in classrooms daily, served on city council, and even ran an after-school tutoring group for at-risk youth.
When I was nine years old, my mother remarried, and it turned out to be the biggest mistake she could have made. She had unknowingly married a drug-abusing pedophile who racked up huge amounts of debt in her name. After their divorce when I was fourteen, my mother was left once again a single mother who had to pick up the pieces of her life and provide for her two children - and she did an amazing job.
In January of 2010, my mother remarried again - which she had never particularly planned to do, as marriage had been sort of soured from her past experience, but she also hadn't planned on meeting someone like Pat. After three years of dating, she said "yes" to a very patient Pat, and luckily for us, this time around, her husband is the kindest, most open-hearted man I know, and I am grateful every day that he and my mother found each other.
Still, a couple of years into their marriage, my mother and stepfather were forced to declare bankruptcy (due to the debt from my first stepfather - are you noticing a pattern here?), and since then, much of their income has gone towards paying off debt that isn't even theirs.
Throughout all of this, my mother - my amazingly kind, giving mother - put herself back through school, earning her Bachelor's and Master's in social work so that she could dedicate her life to what she had always been doing anyway: helping other people.
Now comes the part this has all been leading up to - my goal. My mother has always said that the happiest she has ever been was when she was living in Germany when she was a child. She has wanted to go back for as long as I can remember, and now the perfect opportunity has come: it's her high school reunion, and it's in Berlin. She has been saving for two years, but due to unforseen expenses (medical bills, last minute plane tickets to see her dying father, etc), has fallen far short of the money needed.
So I'm turning to you, citizens of the internet. Please, if you have anything you can spare, help me make my mother's dream come true. Help me get her back home.
Organizer
Cara Brumley
Organizer
Puyallup, WA
