Family crises combine to put us at risk of losing our house

This fundraiser is to help John Sundman and Betty Burton — married for 43 years — get out of a crisis that puts us at risk of losing our house in foreclosure. Our current situation is the result of several years of medical and other family crises which have depleted our savings and radically reduced our income. We believe that if we can weather this storm, within a few months we will be on much surer financial footing.

People on Martha’s Vineyard know Betty from the evening lecture series at the Vineyard Haven Library, which she originated and ran for nearly twenty years, and from her decades of work as chair of the Vineyard Committee on Hunger and director of the Serving Hands and Family to Family food distributions, both of which she also originated. I, for my part, also contributed more than two thousand hours over the years to those programs, and I was, for almost ten years, a volunteer firefighter in the Tisbury Fire Department.

As I, John, write this appeal, Betty is a patient in Martha’s Vineyard Hospital being treated for severe pneumonia. She has been there for seven days and is only slowly getting better. Yesterday she had about a cup of fluid surgically removed from her lungs. This is only the latest in a series of health challenges that have beset Betty for ten years. She has suffered a massive pulmonary embolism, five major surgeries (each of which required long stays in rehabilitation hospitals followed by outpatient physical therapy), and a host of other problems. She has twice been sent by helicopter from the Martha’s Vineyard E.R. to Boston.

Over the last year or so her chronic pain had become so severe that walking more than 100 yards, driving a car longer than ten minutes at a time, or even just getting dressed by herself have become nearly impossible. She is not able to climb stairs safely, and activities like cooking, gardening and doing laundry have become too difficult for her to do. I have assumed responsibility for a lot of the household things which Betty used to do, and I also help her with her personal care.

I am also the health car proxy for our son Jake, who has significant disabilities and a seizure disorder. Over the last 6 years Jakob has experienced a sudden onset of paralysis, major spinal surgery, intensive rehabilitation and physical therapy. He has had several seizures that were treated at MV Hospital, as well as two intractable seizures that necessitated sedating him and sending him by helicopter to Boston. I am Jakob’s principal advocate and go-to person in emergencies. So, for example, when he was paralyzed and during his extensive rehabilitation at Spaulding Hospital, I moved to Boston for 3 months and was with him every day. I have spent countless hours in ambulances, emergency rooms, rehab hospitals and doctors' offices with him.

In early 2021 our older daughter left a dangerous situation, taking her three young children with her. They then spent nearly two years living in a single room in a hotel for transients northwest of Boston. During one six week period, one of the children was hospitalized in Boston.

Because our daughter is medically unable to drive, I went off-island often to help with transportation. I also helped with child care, especially during the period when on of the three children was in hospital. In addition to the expense of my frequent trips off-island, Betty and I covered much of the family’s living expenses, including rent, food, clothing, etc. Eventually this consumed the entirety of our savings. (Thanks to a generous benefactor, our daughter and her children are now in a much better situation.)

I am a freelance technical writer, concentrating mostly on computer and technology-related subjects. My employment over recent years has been sporadic. Over the last half-dozen years I have had to resign from a few jobs because my various caregiving responsibilities made it impossible for me to meet deadlines. Thus my Social Security stipend and Betty’s pension from her years working at the Vineyard Haven public library have been our chief sources of income.

I am also an essayist and self-publishing novelist, which has brought me some modest financial and critical success over the last 25 years. My income from these activities has been low in recent years, but assuming that Betty and I can get past our current crises, over the next few months I will publish one new novel and new editions of my four existing novels in both English and in Spanish. I know there is pent up demand for these books and I believe my income will go up considerably once these ten new books are available for purchase.

I have chosen to focus on this work rather than freelancing because it offers the best hope for me to make a decent income over the next few years. There are many successful 71 year old novelists, but exceedingly few 71 year old technical writers. The grind of keeping up with the latest tech is just too difficult.

I have set the goal at an amount to cover our mortgage arrears and one month into the future. I know it's a lot.

I was foolish to put off asking for help as we fell further and further behind on the mortgage. I had hopes of finishing the book/publishing project much earlier. Obviously it's embarrassing to ask, so I put it off. And, perhaps most importantly, we have been extremely reluctant to talk about our daughter's situation, but that is a key part of the whole story.

Given the rise in housing prices on-island, there is considerable equity in our house. We had hoped to avoid having to do a fundraiser like this, either by obtaining a reverse mortgage or getting a home equity loan, but we have not been able to do so. As of April 11, 2024 we are not in foreclosure but we fear that that may happen at any time after April 23.

We welcome your help in the form of donations, personal loans, or as collateral for a bank loan to be repaid over a period of five years or shorter.

Assuming we survive this crisis, the next six months or so will determine whether Betty and I can afford to remain in hour house on Martha’s Vineyard. If my writing/publishing plans do no pan out we will probably have to take the difficult step of selling our house and moving somewhere more affordable. (This, of course, is complicated, given our son's situation.) If we do find it necessary to sell the house, we will repay any loans with the proceeds.