Help Carol (Dwight Harris’ wife)

Hi my name is Kelly and I am the granddaughter of Dwight and Carol Harris

We have had an outpouring of people ask how they can help or what they can do for our family so I’m hoping this gets some traction

Everyone that knew my grandfather, knew that he worked until he was 82. Part of that was because he absolutely loved his job and he could not sit around, but the other part of that was that he had to. My grandmother also came out of retirement this last year to help pay bills and debt and was a bus aide.

My grandfather had two small life insurance policies, which were the exact amount of the funeral. I paid for the cemetery fees out of pocket because we didn’t have enough. At the end of the burial, the funeral Director, let me know that one of the policies was an inactive, and we still owed $3,000.

My grandmothers van broke while my grandfather was in the hospital. A friend agreed to fix the car, which totaled $350. During this time she was made aware she needed all four new tires.

My grandfathers medical bills are astronomical. As many of you now know, he was diagnosed with Gillian barre syndrome twice in one month. This is a disease where your nervous system attacks itself and essentially paralyzes you. Without treatment, it will reach the respiratory system and can/will kill you: each treatment he had cost 160k let alone the hospital stay. Although a lot was covered by insurance, a lot was not.

On top of all of this, after the burial today, we realized that the reverse mortgage my grandparents took out to survive during the recession in 2008 , does not have my grandmothers name on it due to her age at the time. This means she may have 30 days to vacate her home. She does not make enough money to afford an assisted living apartment /any other apartment. We need to hire a lawyer to try to fight for her right to stay.

We are unfortunately put into a position where we need to ask for help from our community. My grandfather would hate to know the position that my grandmother is in. My grandmother is scared of the future, and can’t even morn the loss of her husband because she is drowning in bills which is all consuming right now. We know everyone is hurting now, and we understand if you cannot contribute. But even a share would be incredibly helpful. Thank you all for loving my family as much as you do.

Any money raised will go immediately to funeral expenses and her car, lawyer fees, and then any left over will be put towards any medical bills we can’t fight to get forgiven/closed.