Sadly, it is not only time for us to begin saying farewell, but to also help our lifelong friend, Cathy Vaughan, with her funeral and burial expenses. Cathy attended Glide High School with the majority of us, graduating with the class of '77. As most of you know by now, she has terminal cancer, Neuroendrican carcinoma and only 1 out of every 200,000 are affected by it.

Cathy was given 9-18 months to live 3 months ago, although the doctors told her it was very difficult to guess how long she has left with us as she was at stage 4 on her first visit and they did not know how long she had been at this stage. Due to several years of misdiagnosis, she went without the much needed treatment until it has become too late to have any other prognosis than terminal. Had she known earlier and had been told she had at least a few more years, she would have been able to start putting money away for her personal funeral and burial expenses. Since this was not the case, she does not have the finances available. Her family is of course helping in any manner they can, but this is a large expense that very few can afford at a moments notice.
It is because of this that I am coming to you now, asking you to dig deep and help in any way you can. With burials costing $5,000-$10,000 and funeral services ranging from $10,000-$20,000, dealing with the costs makes a difficult time for a family even more stressful. While no one is ever emotionally prepared to lose a loved one, funeral and burial expenses only add to the deep stress and grief that is already associated with one of the most difficult events of our lifetime.

I ask you to please contribute and even if you do not know Cathy but have known others with cancer and wanted to help then but didn't know how, perhaps you could assist by helping our friend, Cathy, doing so in memory of your loved one lost to cancer.

I sincerely thank each one of you for your compassion and much needed assistance and ask that you share this with as many as you can. Time is not on our side.

My Most Sincere Gratitude,
Vickie (McCombs) Bonebrake
Class of '75 - Glide High School

*As a side note, Cathy's older sister, Vicki, who graduated with us in '75 was also taken by cancer in 2004. She passed of liver cancer. I always considered her a dear and close friend.

Cathy has not only lost her sister, Vicki, she lost her Mother in June of 2015, her brother, Donny, in May of 2016, and her son, David, on his birthday, August 2, 2016. As you can imagine, her family has endured a great amount of grief and expense over the past several years. Cathy will be leaving 3 children and 12 grandchildren on earth but reuniting with her many loved ones on the other side of the veil. May we do all we can to make her final time with us as stress-free as possible.