Donate to help bury Athena next to her Papa.

Hello everyone, my name is Drea. I am not too good at this kind of thing, and I’m not sure what to say so I will tell you a little bit about my sister, Athena.

Athena is my oldest sister and when she was little she was adopted by my grandparents due to hardships my mother and father were enduring at the time. Her real dad walked out on her at a very young age, and tried to come back into her life as a teenager, to which Athena asked him to never speak to her or contact her again. My grandpa was so excited to have Athena as his own, that he made everyone drive to the house before he passed away to see the paperwork that showed Athena officially as his “baby girl.”

As Athena grew older, she attempted to form relationships whether it was friendly or romantic, but everyone eventually let her down, abandoned her, or bullied her. She began to lock herself in her room and as I grew up I hardly got to see her because she shut everyone out due to fear of rejection and past trauma. Overtime, Athena began to rely on alcohol and medications to suppress her emotions and she never was vocal about her struggles.

Athena slowly became more and more ill, and eventually was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Over the last year she spent her time in and out of hospitals and on June 14th, 2023 she admitted herself to Martinez Medical Center one last time.

On July 14th, 2023, I, along with my father and mother watched Athena slowly pass away at Stanford Medical Center at 7:32 PM. My mother laid by her bed for over a week, hoping and praying that she would be a candidate for a transplant or would atleast by some miracle walk out of the hospital… by the time Athena passed, her eyes were yellow, her skin bruised, her teeth bloody, and her legs looked as if they were rotting off of her body. My mother spoke softly to her, and I played her music to drown out the beeps, buzzes, and chatter of the hospital.

Athena has always just needed and wanted people to be kind to her. The world and life were not kind, but in her final moments she was loved and cared for all the way until she left this earth and went to her forever home.

This is very hard, and I have never seen something like this in my entire life. I don’t watched my big sister struggle until the very end and it will stick with me forever.

I am going to give and do whatever I can to help bury my sister next to my grandpa, her real papa up by the river at Redwood Memorial Gardens. I would be so eternally grateful for any extra help to cover the costs for my sisters burial and funeral.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. For anyone wondering, she was a big goofball with a strong country accent. Athena is so beautiful and deserves to be put to rest next to someone who loved her, and in a beautiful place away from all the things that took her from us.

Thank you again.