On June 3rd, 2016 our mother, Jeri Bird Ward went to be with the lord after losing her battle to a serious infection. Although we can rejoice knowing that she is in heaven with our father, Junior Bird and infant sister, Stephanie Bird, we are broken and struggling to make sense of this.

Mama was born to be a mother and her purpose in life was taking care of our family, which she did with pride and complete dedication, loving each of us with her whole heart. She raised us four girls alone after our dad died in 2001 and has been raising her grandchildren since 2009 when she was awarded full custody.

Because of her unwavering motherly love she helped in raising most of the children in our family and has been a role model and someone to lean on for all that know her. To many, she is known as either Mama Bird or Mama Jeri.

Not only has her unexpected death shaken us to the core but because she did not have a life insurance policy, we are now faced with the many costs of having a funeral. Even with all of us pulling together funds, we just do not have the financial resources at this time and must now ask for help. Anything you can give will be appreciated because we will be that much closer to the closure a funeral will give us. We must lay her to rest and need some assistance to do that.

If you can't help financially, my family is still in desperate need of prayers and those prayers will be appreciated just the same.