I Need You To Do Something For Me.

Before you scroll past this, before you tell yourself someone else will help, or that you'll come back to it later, I need you to stop for just a moment.

Close your eyes and picture the strongest woman you know.

Maybe it's your mother. Your sister. Your best friend. Maybe it's you.

Now imagine that woman losing her husband to cancer while raising seven children, and somehow still showing up for work every single day to provide for her family.

Then falling in love again, only to hear the words "Stage 4. Thirteen months." two weeks after getting married.

Then fighting through a year of chemotherapy. Thirty days of radiation. Surgery. Reconstruction. All of it, while being a mother and an employee, every single day, without pause.

Now imagine she beat it. Against every odd, against every dark statistic, she beat it.

And then imagine that the person who was supposed to be her safe place, the one she ran toward when the world fell apart, became the very thing she had to run from.

Are you still with me?

Because this isn't a hypothetical. This is my friend. And she needs us right now.

The Woman Behind This Campaign:

She is not the kind of person who would ask for help. She is the kind of woman who shows up for everyone else, who spent over twenty years homeschooling seven children, building a career, pouring herself into her family and her work with everything she had, loving and giving quietly and completely without ever asking for anything in return.

When her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019, she became his caregiver. She held her family together with both hands while the man she had built her entire life with slowly slipped away. He passed in 2020, leaving her alone with four children still at home.

She got up the next morning. Got her kids up. And with gentle hands, guided her family forward.

Because that is what she does. She shows up. No matter what.

The Diagnosis That Should Have Ended Everything:

A year and a half after losing her husband, she let herself hope again. She met someone. She fell in love. He proposed. They married.

And fourteen days later, fourteen days, she sat in a doctor's office and was told she had Stage 4 Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Thirteen months to live.

She had just said yes to a future, and now someone was telling her she didn't have one.

They chose to face it together. He brought her to MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the leading cancer treatment facilities in the world, where her diagnosis was revised to Stage 2 HER2-positive breast cancer. Still devastating. Still a mountain. But climbable.

So she climbed it.

She sat in the chemotherapy chair for a full year. Week after week, poison moving through her veins, her body fighting itself and fighting for itself at the same time. She lost her hair. She lost her strength. Chemotherapy forced her into early menopause, changing her body in ways that are permanent and deeply personal.

She completed 30 days of radiation. She had surgery to remove the cancer. She had reconstructive surgery.

And through every single one of those days, every morning she could barely lift her head, every night she lay awake wondering if she would see her children grow up, she was still their mother. Still present. Still showing up.

In March 2023, the cancer was gone.

She had done the impossible.

She came home.

What She Came Home To:

I don't have the words for this part that it deserves. So I'll just tell you the brutal truth.

While she was in treatment, while she was fighting for her life with everything she had, her husband was unfaithful.

She found out. She confronted him. And the relationship she had clung to as a lifeline during the darkest chapter of her life became something she no longer recognized.

The abuse that followed was not just directed at her.

Her children, the same children she had fought to stay alive for, the reason she got back in that chemotherapy chair every single time, were also affected.

She is a mother before she is anything else. And when it became clear that the home she was in was no longer safe for her babies, she made the only decision a mother like her could make.

She walked out the door.

No money. No plan. No safety net.

Just her children, the clothes on their backs, and a courage so fierce and so quiet that it will bring you to your knees if you think about it long enough.

And Then, One More Blow.

Because this woman has never once caught a break she didn't have to fight for, life had one more gut punch waiting.

The moment she secured a rental home for herself and her children, the first safe roof she could call her own, she was laid off from her job.

Let that sink in.

She had clawed her way through widowhood, cancer, abuse, and starting over completely, and the very week she finally got her kids under a safe roof, her income disappeared through an unexpected layoff.

What She Is Facing Right Now:

She is a mother rebuilding from nothing, no savings, no income, a body still healing from cancer, and children who need stability after everything they have witnessed and endured.

She is not looking for a handout. She is looking for a hand up, just long enough to get her footing while she lands back on her feet professionally.

Here is exactly what your donation does:

A safe home — Help covering rent while she secures new employment. Rent is due for her on 4/1 and is $2050. Utility needs- Phone $200, Electric $325, Water/trash $125 Gas $88 Auto Insurance $209

️ Beds & Furniture — She has gathered some items from the community and is still in need of a washer and dryer, a dining table and chairs. They also need a "bunker board" for one of the twin beds. They need a small desk (with chair) and a dresser for the son's room and a very small desk with a chair for one of her younger daughter's room. Four sets of pillows are needed. Two for twin sized beds and two for queen sized beds. They also need a "bunker board" for one of the twin mattresses. They need a small desk (with chair) and a dresser for the son's room and a very small desk with a chair for one of her daughter's rooms.

Clothes & Essentials — Clothing for her 14 year old son and 16 year old daughter. They also need pots (no skillets are needed), bath towels, dish towels, twin bed sheets and queen bed sheets.

Food — They currently have four days worth of food left.

Transportation — To get to interviews. To appointments. To begin again. Money for gas is needed.

Medical follow-up — Cancer doesn't end when chemo does. She needs continued monitoring to stay well. For herself, she has a balance of $1500 that must be paid for her past cancer appointment, $200 for a copay for one child's doctor's appointment and $350 for another child's doctor's appointment. Both children need to see specialists. $850 for the mother's upcoming cancer appointment.

Any additional funds raised will go toward acquiring a divorce lawyer.

A Note on Privacy and Transparency:

To protect the safety of this mother and her children, their identities are being kept private. In situations involving domestic violence, anonymity isn't a choice, it's a necessity.

What I can tell you is this: my name is Jessica Fitzgerald. I am a member of Lions Club International. I met this family through a charitable group, and have been beside this family ever since I heard their devastating story. I have sat with her. I have watched her fight. And I am asking on her behalf because she is too used to helping others to ask for herself.

This campaign is also supported by the DFW Cyber Lions Club, a nonprofit service organization that knows this family personally and is actively walking alongside them through this chapter.

If you have any questions, doubts, or simply want to know more before you give, please reach out. I will answer every single message, personally and promptly. No question is too small. Your trust matters to me as much as your donation does.

All funds of this GoFundMe are being directed through me to this family. They will receive 100% of your donations outside of GoFundMe’s fees.

The Part I Really Need You To Read:

We live in a world where it is easy to feel like our small gestures don't matter. Like one share, one donation, one moment of choosing someone else won't change anything.

I am asking you to reject that feeling today.

This woman built a career while homeschooling seven children. She sat in a chemotherapy chair for a year and refused to give up. She has buried a husband. She has stared down a terminal diagnosis and said not today. She has protected her kids at the cost of everything she had left. And the week she finally got them somewhere safe, she lost her job too.

She has shown up for every hard thing life has handed her, and there have been so many, without ever asking a single person for help.

It is our turn to show up for her.

You don't have to give a lot. You don't have to give anything at all, if you truly can't. But please, please, share this. Put it in your stories. Text it to your mom, your sister, your best friend. Post it in your neighborhood group. Share it with anyone who has ever loved a strong woman and wanted to do something to honor that.

Because somewhere out there is the person whose share reaches the right eyes. Somewhere out there is the donation that covers her rent this month. Somewhere out there is the hiring manager who sees this story and thinks, I want someone that strong on my team.

Let that moment be today.

Let it start with you.

She kept showing up for everyone else. Now it's our turn to show up for her.

For her. For her children. For every mother who has ever held everything together with shaking hands and kept going anyway.