Please Help My Dad!

Hi! My name is Karen! I’m an artist from Northern California and I’m here to talk about my dad! I normally don’t like to talk about my personal problems in public but my dad needs help!

My dad and my two youngest sisters! C. 1995

My dad, José, was born in México and he came to the U.S. in the mid/late 80s. He, along with my mom, raised three girls: my sisters Grace, Mariseli, and me! My dad has always been a very great dad! Because my mom worked in the evenings when we were younger, he’d take care of us, feed us, play games with us, and let us watch movies all the time. When my dad bought a camcorder for the first time, he recorded a lot of fun memories of his children. We have so many home movies of us watching Jurassic Park 2, singing along to the opening theme of Ranma ½, and running through the sprinklers of our backyard. We’d watch soccer games with him and cheer for his favorite Mexican soccer team, Club America. It was my dad who taught me how to color! He even built us a backyard playground, complete with swings, ladders, a two-story mini playhouse, and a slide! I had a really fun and memorable childhood and I’m sure my sisters would agree.

My family!

In the previous months, both sides of my family have been going through extremely painful and emotional experiences and this has affected my dad very deeply, to the point of depression.

My dad is self-employed and does business as a lawn-care maintenance/gardener/etc. He’s been working the same job for as long as he’s been in the U.S. He used to work almost every day of the week, including Saturdays, and he rarely took a day off. Now, he’s been getting less and less business and works maybe three times a week for a few hours.  It’s hard for him to get up in the mornings and it’s getting harder for him to go to work. He sleeps long hours as soon as he comes home, he won’t eat and he doesn’t laugh anymore. At first, my sisters just brushed it off because we assumed he was still working full time. It turns out he would leave and pretend he had work every day. We had no idea what was going on with our family so we ignored everything. This made him even more depressed and now he rarely talks to us. Now that I know what’s really going on, I feel incredibly guilty and sad.

My dad is very stubborn (as most dads usually are) and he is in denial about his depression. Also, because he’s been getting less income, he’s been relying on his credit cards to make payments on even the smallest things and he doesn’t want to ask for money/help anymore. My dad is in debt because of this. Even though my sisters and I have jobs, we can’t afford to pull him out of this debt because we are taking care of my parents’ house and helping my mom with bills and other miscellaneous things. We can’t magically fix my dad’s depression, but alleviating my dad’s debt is one way to remove some stress. My sisters and I are currently trying to get help for his depression and even though he says he’s okay, he isn’t. I don’t know if my dad will ever be the same but I want him to know that we are here for him. Depression isn’t something that people can get over in a day and we have no idea what my dad is going through, emotionally or physically, but we want to help him.

My dad admiring his garden!

I want to help him in any way I can because I love him and he’s the best dad in the world. My dad has no idea I’m doing this, so I hope we can reach the goal and bring him some relief.

Thank you so much for hearing me out!

-Karen

Because I'm an artist, I will be offering art as rewards! Please take a look and read the descriptions in the rewards list.

example of a black and white inked painting/drawing.

example of a full body/color digital commission. Limit one character.
example of a watercolor painting!

Example of the two paper sculptures!

...and the 1.5" buttons!

Thanks for looking!