Help Craig Jones Spend His Final Days at Home

I am posting this GoFundMe to benefit Craig Jones, a man who I count among my dearest family members and who selflessly provided homecare and unmatched friendship to my grandfather through the final decade of his life. Craig is not only my friend, he is the most profound living connection I still have to my grandfather.

A larger-than-life personality, Craig is equal parts straight-talking cowboy and irrepressible wit. An avid historian and social critic with an immensely compassionate soul, in the late 1960s Craig made the hard choice to seek asylum in Canada where he found work as a farmhand rather than fight a senseless war he opposed in Vietnam. Those years of displacement severely impacted the circumstances of his retirement. Now 76, Craig still retains his sharpness of mind; however, despite his lucidity and drive for life, he has suffered from emphysema since 2020 and is increasingly physically fragile. He has had to be on oxygen and pharmaceutical assistance and in end-of-life hospice care now for more than a year.

More than anything, Craig wishes to undergo hospice in the dignity of his own home, a modest rental where he lived with and cared for my grandfather until his passing in 2012, after which Craig dedicated himself to caring for other friends. While Craig’s sister Lisa has been managing Craig’s care for the past five years, those of us who have been assisting Craig and Lisa in turn find ourselves with no choice but to ask our broader communities for help in covering the costs of his most basic medical maintenance as he now needs more in-home care than Lisa herself can provide, and as he awaits what is a slow process of approval for Oregon State Medicaid.

All of us thank you immensely for any support you can give to ensure Craig the peace of mind he deserves by knowing that he can spend his remaining days in the comfort and dignity of his own home. Truly, anything helps.