Dorothy Claybourne-Carrier

Dorothy,

life long philanthropist. For everybody who knew this beautiful women, it is guaranteed that she left her mark. Perhaps she housed you in her home and raised you as your own, maybe took and cared for your children when you needed her to or maybe helped you run away from an abusive relationship. Whatever it was there is no denying that she is an amazing women.

Dorothy, had always been the life of the party. Packing up 40 kids onto a bus and taking them on a trip to wonderland, hosting the most nostalgic holiday parties. Planning massive camping trips with tons of children and their parents.

a women that every single person she encountered ended up calling her Ma or Nanny, because that is how she made everybody feel.

for anybody who didn’t know her, I don’t think I could ever explain just what she did for this world and how many people she changed the trajectory of their lives.

Dorothy is my grandmother. For the past 10 years she was living with the effects of Alzheimer’s. for people who have not had a live one effected by this disease, put a hand to the sky and say “Thank you Lord”. Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease. It is a dementia. Your brain is slowly dying. You start by losing your memory. It comes in waves. First you will forget things that you have just said and done. Eventually you will forget all your recent past. And you will only remember things from you deep past. A your memory continues to deteriorate and bring you into the past until you only remember your adult children as babies, and soon not at all. You eventually start reverting back to a baby. Forgetting how to use the washroom, write, read, walk, talk, eat, and eventually swallow. And eventually the disease will take your life.

This process was a slow agonizing 10 year process for my grandmother. But Doctors say it is harder on the family the the patient, but honestly you can see the fear in her eyes. Just like her mother before her, my great grandma Eva.

all this to highlight just a tiny bit of what the past 10 years looked like.

My Grandmother, being the thoughtful loving person she has always been paid for her own funeral over 30 years ago.

over the past 10 we did not speak a word of her funeral arrangements, as if perhaps if we never mentioned it the day would never come.

The morning of November 6th, Dorothy took her last breath. In her room here at home, in a house filled with people who love her deeply. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Now it has come time to set all planes and dates into place. We have come to find out that all thought she planned and payed for her own funeral, because she payed over 30 years ago, not everything she wanted will be covered anymore.

Ultimately these expenses were not planned for by the family but still we would love to give her the funeral that she wanted and deserves and more.

Now we reach out to you. If Dorothy has ever touched your life, or guided the life and helped a loved on of yours survive childhood and make into your loving arms, helped raise your children or help take care of your elderly parents, please find it in your heart to Donate in memory of Dorothy, the most selfless person I have ever come into contact with and lucky enough to call Nanny.

My Grandmother is survived by too many children (50 or more) to list here, and even more Grandchildren (my brain can’t fathom how many).

Frankly, I would be pressed to be able to identify which are biological vs. Adopted vs. Fostered.

To her we were all just her babies, and treated us a so, and never would allow anybody to differentiate.

For me to even try would be an insult to her legacy and go against everything we were taught and shown by her.

Thank you for your thoughts and love.

As of right now a funeral date has not been set in stone, but it will be posted on here as soon as it has been set.