I am not one to come to anyone when I am in need of help, but I feel like I have no choice. At the beginning of October my dad passed away at the age of 53 at the expense of some poor choices he has made. My dad was an alcoholic and due to his alcoholism he found himself at end stage cirrhosis at a young age. This was the wake up call he needed to finally make the choice to go to rehab and get sober over dying. My dad chose to go to rehab and despite the loss of his mother, my grandma, passing away after rehab, he remained sober. My dad was told by his doctors that his body was responding well to being sober & if he continued down that path for 6 months he could be placed on a transplant list for a liver. Despite losing his mom who he lived with and was super close with, he remained sober.

As long as I could remember my dad was an alcoholic. After enduring many decades of the heartache that comes with dealing with a family member with alcoholism, I made the decision to put myself first and separate my life from his. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but it was needed. This decision was made only about six months before he passed away. When my grandma died I didn't reach out and check on him. When I heard he was 3 months sober I didn't reach out and congratulate him. I couldn't bring myself to cross the boundary I worked so hard to set with him just because he finally made the decision to do better. Now, here I am at the age of 31 without a dad, and regretting that decision tremendously. My dad had no one and nothing to show for his life, and as you can imagine obtaining his ashes to lay him to rest is going to cost a lot.

I have many good people in my life that have encouraged me to make this GoFundMe to see if funds can be raised this way so that I can put him in the ground with his mom & brother, and also have a place to visit him if I need to. The funeral home is telling me that the cost for his ashes will be $1,775 along with the medical examiners fee of $240. In such an unstable economy there is no way I can pull the funds to pay this, especially with as sudden as this was. I have looked into a payment plan, but since his body was surrendered to the coroners office this isn't an option (he lived in Wisconsin & was found on a welfare check). Since my dad had no one, I feel obligated to bring him to rest & feel this is the right thing to do.

It's hard to not think about the what ifs. What if he had gotten sober would I have mended my relationship with him. What if he got sober would he be a part of his grandkids lives. What if he was still here would I get the sorry I have been waiting for my entire life for all the pain I have endured at the hands of his alcohol addiction. What if he had stayed sober for six months would he have gotten the transplant he needed to still be here for a longer period of my life. There's so much sadness and regret that now plagues my life, which is why I feel that I want to reach out to those around me during this time to see if I can get funds to bring him to rest. There are so many people in my life that have watched my dad's alcoholism affect my life who have been there to help me through it. I am asking for help one last time.

I take peace in knowing that the medical examiner told us that there was no alcohol found in my dad's blood when he passed away. I am so proud of him for not dying an alcoholic. If you have read this far, thank you. Thank you for any donation or prayer during this time.