A Home for Christmas, Share the Joy
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Racing to dress, I watch from the open door as her feet scuff tentatively over the icy deck and struggle to meet the two steps onto the ground. Her body slumps as she limps across seventy feet of freezing earth to the water barrel. She whimpers softly and I wonder to myself what is hurting her most today--her premature arthritis, her ruptured disks, or something else?
It's snowy today and the puffy flakes cling to her once beautiful hair now matted with an oily sheen. Her clothes are wrinkled and stained and in need of a wash.
She reaches the plastic barrel and with a determined swoop, pulls off the lid. After peering inside, she grabs the hammer from a chair a foot away. She lifts the hammer over her head and plunges it into the barrel with a thud--the ice is thick today. Two more times she strikes the ice. It cracks, the water reacts with a slosh. Her throat reacts with a groan. She clutches the scoop and pushes through her pain to reach the water.
"Wait I'll get that". "No" she replies, without looking up. I reluctantly step back and shut out the blistering cold with a click of the door handle. I finish dressing as fast as I can, and begin to slip on my socks and shoes. My legs feel welcoming warmth; I glance at the electric room heater. A smile peels across my face. At least we are warm. For six years we didn't have electricity, not even a light. We heated our tiny space with a propane heater "normal" families use in their garage or workshop. For safety, we cracked the door open; when we slept, we turned it off altogether. Those were some cold days and even colder nights.
BOOM. The pandemonium shocks me from the memory of our recent struggles and hurls me to my feet. I know the sound -- it has happened before. I swing open the door and find her sprawled across the icy deck almost in tears. The two gallons of water she was carrying to fill the dish tub on the deck is now emptied around her. Tiny currents of H2O ripple over the grain, taunting with every drip, drip to the crusted earth beneath.
She holds her knee, a tear tumbles down her face as she speaks, "I thought I could do it". I drop to her and hold her close to me. She is my soul-mate.
We Need a Home for Christmas.
Please share the joy and donate. But if you can not, please share our story so that others in a similar situation will not feel so isolated, reduced and alone. Maybe our journey will give them the hope and inspiration that they need to get them through their own catastrophes. Move down the page to read about our journey.
Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, live a joyous and fulfilling life, and have a prosperous New Year.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Thank you for your help and please share. Every little bit helps.
OUR JOURNEY
The Snowball Effect
Many of you may relate to some of the experiences that I am sharing with you now, and how one catastrophe can snowball into many. So, please read on.
Our journey for medical care, food, safety, and shelter began a couple years before the housing crash of 2008. Nationwide cataclysms like this affect the most vulnerable first, and this axiom proved to be true.
Years ago, my soulmate of many years became permanently disabled reducing our two earner household income to one. With the medical bills mounting for years, our savings was depleted to nothing. Eventually, we could no longer afford the medical bills and had only one choice--to stop seeking care. Her disability happened before the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and after our funds were depleted, she was unable to receive medical assistance from the state, and was not eligible for government funded medicaid or medicare programs even though she had paid into the system for years.
Before ACA, people in these situations were forced to rely on their state to decide who is eligible for health care and medical treatment after a disability. But here is the rub -- it is almost impossible for most families with a working member to receive it. The restrictions and rules are ridiculous. The system is broken. So I continue...
I was told once that catastrophe comes in threes. And boy did it. I was laid-off shortly after the love of my life became disabled and could no longer work. As the economy began to tank, I struggled to find decent work, hopping from one low paying job to another in between stints of unemployment. None offered medical insurance and worse yet, I have no formal degree. So, my employment during those years was restricted to low paying jobs, with no benefits.
Simply put, after taxes and FICA, we couldn't afford to eat every day even though we had no credit-card debt -- just a small mortgage. Prior to her disability, we had purchased a small house well under what we could afford at that time, expecting to save for a nice home in the woods one day. We were doing everything right -- so we thought.
Then catastrophe number three, we lost our modest home, the remaining car, and had to move into a forty year-old camper. Yes, you read right. A 40 year old camper with a leaking roof, and 2 by 20 foot path to move around in. A dangerous, ageing mold occupied the camper with us.
We had no electricity, no lights, no heat, no AC, no fridge, no water, no indoor toilet (we use an outhouse), no shower, no hot water, no internet, no TV, no radio, no working stove -- for six years. The hauled water tank kept freezing several times in the winter. After the 3rd replacement, we just could not afford another one. And even though I applied sealant on the roof several times, during every storm, we still woke to dripping water on our foam, make-shift beds.
Before we moved into the camper, we did find a place to store our well-cared-for furniture, appliances and electronics; however, what was not ruined, was stolen, stolen by people that had a home and furniture of their own.
One thing kept us going -- Land. With great sacrifice, we had managed to save one thing, and that was a parcel of land in a forest. If we lost that, we would have no future -- it would be all over. So instead of renting a tiny, affordable place we chose to make the remaining land payments. We scraped and scraped; ate the most inexpensive food we could buy; wore the same clothes for years; stayed in the camper; had no vacations; no Christmas, no New Year's Eve parties, no Birthdays, no Valentine's Day, no Thanksgiving turkey. At one point I slept at my low-paying job to save the gas on the drive home. These years were a living hell.
For those wondering, in our state, medical assistance of any kind is not available for non-geriatric adults without children; the underemployed; people with hidden yet severe disabilities; or owners of property worth over a couple thousand dollars. These conditions made us ineligible for care. To make matters worse, when ACA was enacted, my state opted out of medicaid expansion. States that opted out kept people like us in the same ineligible, non-covered dilemma.
In 2012, the supreme court ruling took away the mandate of the ACA that all states must provide health care to ALL their citizens by taking the medicaid expansion. Instead, the supreme court ruled that the medicaid expansion was optional, thereby creating a huge gap in coverage that many people like us fall between. Many states did opt out. Because the supremes neutured the "health care for all" mandate, neither of us qualified for health care and medical treatment. Our state's decision made it impossible for either of us to receive medical care. We did not qualify. So we continued to struggle onward.
After another lay off, the outsourced employment company (they take about one third of your pay to get you the job) refused to submit documentation so I would qualify for my earned, unemployment benefits. Months passed without benefits and no job offers. But we were able to get an emergency food box to last a month. The box contained an open 1/2 box of cereal (no milk), a bag of noodles, a bag of beans, 2 boxes of mac & cheese, a half loaf of bread and a few cans of vegetables and ravioli -- most of it expired.
Every day, I watched helplessly as the woman who stole my heart fought through her physical pain. Each passing year, she became more debilitated. Then her body started to swell, she was getting more tired and had less energy, more pain, and her vision was getting worse. A home test confirmed what we had suspected for years, that she had diabetes.
Now what? No insurance and the inability to eat the nutritious, and expensive diet needed to naturally slow down the disease. I can not describe to you the anger, the sadness and the consuming helplessness that I experienced. Being the man, I felt that ultimately, it was my responsibility to care for my family. I started to sink into a silent depression. I was a mess.
We pushed forward with only the dream of change to seduce us. Many years after the housing crash and economic recession, I finally got a job that paid enough to eat every day. We saved enough to develop the land in the woods. We installed electricity and self-built our dark green, 200 square foot cabin some of which was built with reclaimed wood we had collected for years.
Despite her increasing back, joint and muscle pain, my soul-mate helped build planting beds for a garden. I hand dug holes in our rock-hard soil so she could plant fruit and nut trees. She planted the young trees and the vegetables. While I was at work, she diligently hand watered our future food with tanked water that I hauled home. She added a small grape vineyard too. She took great care of our organically grown, future food with the promise of nourishment within a few years. However, since last year, her pain has made her unable to continue to do these things. So far we have planted peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, almond and grape.
We have heat now -- and lights too. We also purchased a used, 35 year old fridge. We have the use of a friend's computer and have access to their internet a few miles away. Still no indoor water, indoor toilet, no bathroom, no bedroom, no appliances, or furniture, though. My sweetheart finally has a small bed to sleep on. I still sleep in a chair.
It has been over ten years since our first catastrophe; now in my fifties, I still continue to go to work everyday and keep our plight secret from my co-workers. It is humiliating, but despite everything, we can see glimpses of the future again. We are hopeful, but we are just surviving. Without help at our age and future medical bills looming, a home is out of our reach.
But with your help, we can do more than just survive. We can build more square footage and add 2 rooms; buy a water tank and filters to harvest rain water; install an indoor toilet and shower; A home will make our lives better. We can start eating healthy again, receive medical treatment again, feel safe again, have fun again, feel alive again, and live again. Because if we're not living, we're dying.
We have done all we possibly can and have no living family that can help. Our credit rating was demolished because of the medical bills -- we have exhausted our limited resources -- we have done the best we can do, and sacrificed everything for our small cabin. We need your help to finish it and make it a home. At our age, time is running out.
So please pay it forward. But if finances prevent you from doing so, please share our story so that we might prevent others from a similar plight. Maybe our journey will give them the tools that they need to get them through their own catastrophes. Maybe our journey will give them the information they need for a better future.
We can help prevent these tragedies by demanding that our government leaders make the changes necessary and create legislation that prevent us all from falling through the cracks and experiencing the distruction of the snowball effect -- so that no American suffers as we have in our great nation. Our story might be yours someday.
Join Us on Our Journey toward A Home for Christmas.
Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, and live a joyous and fulfilling life.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Our Needs
Building a Home for Christmas Myself with Your Financial Help.
Goal 1
Build a two room addition ( a bathroom and bedroom ) to our existing 200 sq/ft small cabin
Finish foundation, shell in lumber, roof, and siding with 10% tax and funding bank fees - 2,975
Goal 2
Interior Material, Taxes, Funding Bank Fees - 5,946
1. CDX, Wall board
2. Insulation
3. exterior doors/hardware (2)
4. Two Windows
5. Shower
6. Vanity
7. Faucets
8. Electricity
9. Plumbing
10. Fixtures
11. Floors w/Underlayment for addition and previous room.
Goal 3
Water System, Taxes, Funding Bank Fees - 2,200
1. 1,000 gallon water tank
2. filters and UV purifyers
3. hot water heater
4. water pump
5. plumbing
When GOALS 1 - 3 are completed...
We Will Have A Home for Christmas.
After I finish building our cabin, I will get a second job and try to afford a healthcare policy and seek treatment for her diabetes, spinal surgery (herniated and compressed disks), knee surgery (blown ACL) and joint pain. Get her eyes diagnosed and treated.
Fifteen years ago, she was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia, so we intend to get treatment for that as well. She has had asthma since childhood and has not had treatment for years. I will also try to get her inhalers so she has them when her attacks come on.
I know this sounds like alot, but when you can not get medical care, injuries and illnesses accumulate and spiral out of control -- sometimes creating more health problems.
Again, Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, live a joyous and fulfilling life, and have a prosperous New Year.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Again Our Deepest Thanks
It's snowy today and the puffy flakes cling to her once beautiful hair now matted with an oily sheen. Her clothes are wrinkled and stained and in need of a wash.
She reaches the plastic barrel and with a determined swoop, pulls off the lid. After peering inside, she grabs the hammer from a chair a foot away. She lifts the hammer over her head and plunges it into the barrel with a thud--the ice is thick today. Two more times she strikes the ice. It cracks, the water reacts with a slosh. Her throat reacts with a groan. She clutches the scoop and pushes through her pain to reach the water.
"Wait I'll get that". "No" she replies, without looking up. I reluctantly step back and shut out the blistering cold with a click of the door handle. I finish dressing as fast as I can, and begin to slip on my socks and shoes. My legs feel welcoming warmth; I glance at the electric room heater. A smile peels across my face. At least we are warm. For six years we didn't have electricity, not even a light. We heated our tiny space with a propane heater "normal" families use in their garage or workshop. For safety, we cracked the door open; when we slept, we turned it off altogether. Those were some cold days and even colder nights.
BOOM. The pandemonium shocks me from the memory of our recent struggles and hurls me to my feet. I know the sound -- it has happened before. I swing open the door and find her sprawled across the icy deck almost in tears. The two gallons of water she was carrying to fill the dish tub on the deck is now emptied around her. Tiny currents of H2O ripple over the grain, taunting with every drip, drip to the crusted earth beneath.
She holds her knee, a tear tumbles down her face as she speaks, "I thought I could do it". I drop to her and hold her close to me. She is my soul-mate.
We Need a Home for Christmas.
Please share the joy and donate. But if you can not, please share our story so that others in a similar situation will not feel so isolated, reduced and alone. Maybe our journey will give them the hope and inspiration that they need to get them through their own catastrophes. Move down the page to read about our journey.
Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, live a joyous and fulfilling life, and have a prosperous New Year.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Thank you for your help and please share. Every little bit helps.
OUR JOURNEY
The Snowball Effect
Many of you may relate to some of the experiences that I am sharing with you now, and how one catastrophe can snowball into many. So, please read on.
Our journey for medical care, food, safety, and shelter began a couple years before the housing crash of 2008. Nationwide cataclysms like this affect the most vulnerable first, and this axiom proved to be true.
Years ago, my soulmate of many years became permanently disabled reducing our two earner household income to one. With the medical bills mounting for years, our savings was depleted to nothing. Eventually, we could no longer afford the medical bills and had only one choice--to stop seeking care. Her disability happened before the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and after our funds were depleted, she was unable to receive medical assistance from the state, and was not eligible for government funded medicaid or medicare programs even though she had paid into the system for years.
Before ACA, people in these situations were forced to rely on their state to decide who is eligible for health care and medical treatment after a disability. But here is the rub -- it is almost impossible for most families with a working member to receive it. The restrictions and rules are ridiculous. The system is broken. So I continue...
I was told once that catastrophe comes in threes. And boy did it. I was laid-off shortly after the love of my life became disabled and could no longer work. As the economy began to tank, I struggled to find decent work, hopping from one low paying job to another in between stints of unemployment. None offered medical insurance and worse yet, I have no formal degree. So, my employment during those years was restricted to low paying jobs, with no benefits.
Simply put, after taxes and FICA, we couldn't afford to eat every day even though we had no credit-card debt -- just a small mortgage. Prior to her disability, we had purchased a small house well under what we could afford at that time, expecting to save for a nice home in the woods one day. We were doing everything right -- so we thought.
Then catastrophe number three, we lost our modest home, the remaining car, and had to move into a forty year-old camper. Yes, you read right. A 40 year old camper with a leaking roof, and 2 by 20 foot path to move around in. A dangerous, ageing mold occupied the camper with us.
We had no electricity, no lights, no heat, no AC, no fridge, no water, no indoor toilet (we use an outhouse), no shower, no hot water, no internet, no TV, no radio, no working stove -- for six years. The hauled water tank kept freezing several times in the winter. After the 3rd replacement, we just could not afford another one. And even though I applied sealant on the roof several times, during every storm, we still woke to dripping water on our foam, make-shift beds.
Before we moved into the camper, we did find a place to store our well-cared-for furniture, appliances and electronics; however, what was not ruined, was stolen, stolen by people that had a home and furniture of their own.
One thing kept us going -- Land. With great sacrifice, we had managed to save one thing, and that was a parcel of land in a forest. If we lost that, we would have no future -- it would be all over. So instead of renting a tiny, affordable place we chose to make the remaining land payments. We scraped and scraped; ate the most inexpensive food we could buy; wore the same clothes for years; stayed in the camper; had no vacations; no Christmas, no New Year's Eve parties, no Birthdays, no Valentine's Day, no Thanksgiving turkey. At one point I slept at my low-paying job to save the gas on the drive home. These years were a living hell.
For those wondering, in our state, medical assistance of any kind is not available for non-geriatric adults without children; the underemployed; people with hidden yet severe disabilities; or owners of property worth over a couple thousand dollars. These conditions made us ineligible for care. To make matters worse, when ACA was enacted, my state opted out of medicaid expansion. States that opted out kept people like us in the same ineligible, non-covered dilemma.
In 2012, the supreme court ruling took away the mandate of the ACA that all states must provide health care to ALL their citizens by taking the medicaid expansion. Instead, the supreme court ruled that the medicaid expansion was optional, thereby creating a huge gap in coverage that many people like us fall between. Many states did opt out. Because the supremes neutured the "health care for all" mandate, neither of us qualified for health care and medical treatment. Our state's decision made it impossible for either of us to receive medical care. We did not qualify. So we continued to struggle onward.
After another lay off, the outsourced employment company (they take about one third of your pay to get you the job) refused to submit documentation so I would qualify for my earned, unemployment benefits. Months passed without benefits and no job offers. But we were able to get an emergency food box to last a month. The box contained an open 1/2 box of cereal (no milk), a bag of noodles, a bag of beans, 2 boxes of mac & cheese, a half loaf of bread and a few cans of vegetables and ravioli -- most of it expired.
Every day, I watched helplessly as the woman who stole my heart fought through her physical pain. Each passing year, she became more debilitated. Then her body started to swell, she was getting more tired and had less energy, more pain, and her vision was getting worse. A home test confirmed what we had suspected for years, that she had diabetes.
Now what? No insurance and the inability to eat the nutritious, and expensive diet needed to naturally slow down the disease. I can not describe to you the anger, the sadness and the consuming helplessness that I experienced. Being the man, I felt that ultimately, it was my responsibility to care for my family. I started to sink into a silent depression. I was a mess.
We pushed forward with only the dream of change to seduce us. Many years after the housing crash and economic recession, I finally got a job that paid enough to eat every day. We saved enough to develop the land in the woods. We installed electricity and self-built our dark green, 200 square foot cabin some of which was built with reclaimed wood we had collected for years.
Despite her increasing back, joint and muscle pain, my soul-mate helped build planting beds for a garden. I hand dug holes in our rock-hard soil so she could plant fruit and nut trees. She planted the young trees and the vegetables. While I was at work, she diligently hand watered our future food with tanked water that I hauled home. She added a small grape vineyard too. She took great care of our organically grown, future food with the promise of nourishment within a few years. However, since last year, her pain has made her unable to continue to do these things. So far we have planted peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, almond and grape.
We have heat now -- and lights too. We also purchased a used, 35 year old fridge. We have the use of a friend's computer and have access to their internet a few miles away. Still no indoor water, indoor toilet, no bathroom, no bedroom, no appliances, or furniture, though. My sweetheart finally has a small bed to sleep on. I still sleep in a chair.
It has been over ten years since our first catastrophe; now in my fifties, I still continue to go to work everyday and keep our plight secret from my co-workers. It is humiliating, but despite everything, we can see glimpses of the future again. We are hopeful, but we are just surviving. Without help at our age and future medical bills looming, a home is out of our reach.
But with your help, we can do more than just survive. We can build more square footage and add 2 rooms; buy a water tank and filters to harvest rain water; install an indoor toilet and shower; A home will make our lives better. We can start eating healthy again, receive medical treatment again, feel safe again, have fun again, feel alive again, and live again. Because if we're not living, we're dying.
We have done all we possibly can and have no living family that can help. Our credit rating was demolished because of the medical bills -- we have exhausted our limited resources -- we have done the best we can do, and sacrificed everything for our small cabin. We need your help to finish it and make it a home. At our age, time is running out.
So please pay it forward. But if finances prevent you from doing so, please share our story so that we might prevent others from a similar plight. Maybe our journey will give them the tools that they need to get them through their own catastrophes. Maybe our journey will give them the information they need for a better future.
We can help prevent these tragedies by demanding that our government leaders make the changes necessary and create legislation that prevent us all from falling through the cracks and experiencing the distruction of the snowball effect -- so that no American suffers as we have in our great nation. Our story might be yours someday.
Join Us on Our Journey toward A Home for Christmas.
Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, and live a joyous and fulfilling life.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Our Needs
Building a Home for Christmas Myself with Your Financial Help.
Goal 1
Build a two room addition ( a bathroom and bedroom ) to our existing 200 sq/ft small cabin
Finish foundation, shell in lumber, roof, and siding with 10% tax and funding bank fees - 2,975
Goal 2
Interior Material, Taxes, Funding Bank Fees - 5,946
1. CDX, Wall board
2. Insulation
3. exterior doors/hardware (2)
4. Two Windows
5. Shower
6. Vanity
7. Faucets
8. Electricity
9. Plumbing
10. Fixtures
11. Floors w/Underlayment for addition and previous room.
Goal 3
Water System, Taxes, Funding Bank Fees - 2,200
1. 1,000 gallon water tank
2. filters and UV purifyers
3. hot water heater
4. water pump
5. plumbing
When GOALS 1 - 3 are completed...
We Will Have A Home for Christmas.
After I finish building our cabin, I will get a second job and try to afford a healthcare policy and seek treatment for her diabetes, spinal surgery (herniated and compressed disks), knee surgery (blown ACL) and joint pain. Get her eyes diagnosed and treated.
Fifteen years ago, she was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia, so we intend to get treatment for that as well. She has had asthma since childhood and has not had treatment for years. I will also try to get her inhalers so she has them when her attacks come on.
I know this sounds like alot, but when you can not get medical care, injuries and illnesses accumulate and spiral out of control -- sometimes creating more health problems.
Again, Our Deepest Thanks to You and Your Loved Ones.
May you and your family have a wonderful holiday, live a joyous and fulfilling life, and have a prosperous New Year.
Peace, Love and Joy.
The Turner Family
Again Our Deepest Thanks
Organizer
B. Turner
Organizer
Nashville, TN
