UPDATE FROM EVE:
Hello Wonderful GoFundMe Friends!
I am so very grateful to you. You’ve helped me to not die of sorrow. And you’ve helped me to pay the rent and buy toilet paper.
My neighbors and you have been the safety-net keeping me tethered to the living. The family and friends I thought would be in touch with me have not. So each one of you, who’ve responded to my signs is a beautiful gift angel from the universe. Thank you for your loveliness. Thank you for caring.
After I moved to Iowa in 2003 to recover from chemical poisoning, my mom Penny said to me on the telephone: “You and I are going to be partners and help each other. The others (my siblings) all have partners. You and I are going to be partners and we’re going to be successful.”
In Iowa I was in a car/deer collision and a house I rented was not properly grounded and gave me electrical poisoning.
Penny worked at Trader Joe’s until she was 88. On her days off we talked on the phone. She would say to me: “You’re going to be alright, we’re going to make it” and “You’re going to make it, we’re going to be alright.” Kind friends, please do not overlook the power of encouragement.
Shortly before she stopped walking and the avalanche of deterioration piled on, Penny said to me: “I’m not going to be here, you’re going to have to make it on your own.” She paused, thought about it, nodded her head and said “You’ll make it.”
After Penny helping me for ten years and me caring for her the past eleven, I’ve lost my 21 years life partner. Not just my mother: my dearest friend, my creative partner, my financial support through our illnesses, my wise advisor, my greatest champion.
Thank you lovely people for being my cheerleaders now.
After the last several years of intense exhausting care (without a car–all on foot), I have failed and at age 99 Penny is dead and nothing I do will change that. But I made a pledge and its the other force that’s kept me with the living.
Two nights before Penny died I told her I was so sorry her body was giving out and she wasn't going to be here to finish the projects we were working on together. But that I was going to finish them without her: our calendars, one of her floral fabric sculptures and also my Wall Coloring Calendar; our books; and her Century Tour that we planned to do after her birthday next February. That I would finish our projects, that I would go on our tour without her and offer our shows and workshops and conversations.
Oh, my lovely friends, Penny was so completely ecstatic that she mattered and I will share our work with the world, that after six days unable to speak she found a way to get sound out with her breath and told me so: “I wuv you.”
So, here I am now, a combination of new orphan, bereaved friend, destitute widow and grieving parent (because even as I have no offspring, the loving doting care I gave her was like she gave me when I was her young child).
It was non-stop exhausting work and I was surprised how much I desperately missed being loving to her. Oh, the sorrow.
But I made a pledge and I have to meet the challenge. Please help me.
Here is my update of constructive accomplishments the past 5 months:
- 4 months of round the clock wailing, hollering screams have left me with greater lung capacity, and gratefulness my upstairs and next door neighbors never complained.
- In May and June I was an exhausted possessed frenzied outdoor walker because my mother died when she stopped walking.
- I can now again eat and sleep.
- My physical injuries from caring for Penny are healing.
- My neighbor Sarah is now my GoFundMe Manager and this appeal is connected to my bank account and actively helping me. THank you everyone.
- I’m creating a marvelous 2026 Year of the Fire Horse Wall Calendar. I’m almost halfway done.
- I pushed 70lbs on my cart and took the bus and was an artist vendor at a Makers Market in June and it was injurious, exhausting and lovely.
- I’m working on a solo artist show and performance fundraiser here in Mountain View, California. When the venue and dates are confirmed I’ll give you an update.
- I have completed the application filing process for my small retirement pension from years worked before my illnesses. In approximately 5 to 7 months I’ll start receiving it.
- I quite desperately need your help to bridge me between now and when I actually start to receive the pension, maybe January, maybe April.
The safest thing for me now and as a foundation for being a productive helper in the world in the future is to stay here in our apartment for a bit longer.
THE $ BOTTOM LINE:
Two of the large concerns listed in April in this appeal have been resolved. 1) The rules were changed and Penny’s survivor pension did not retract any funds. 2) My siblings have made donations to the clergy and are paying the remaining mortuary costs. Penny’s burial expenses are fully addressed. 3) Paying monthly expenses is my most crucial financial need. The monthly total is $3,608.
Thank you wonderful GoFundMe friends for being lovely angels in my life.
This GFM appeal is my only internet presence. Please tell your communities of my appeal, please share the link and help spread word of my quest.
Thank you for your donations, for both the practical assistance and the encouragement - the votes of confidence. THank you for helping me heal and move safely into an unknown future.
If you have suggestions for me and want to contact me directly, my mailing address is P.O. Box 1174, Mountain View, CA 94042 USA.
Thank you.
Best Wishes & Love to You!
Eve Levin aka Raenite (ray-night)
UPDATE:
Penny passed in her sleep in the early morning hours on Saturday, April 12, 2025.
Hello Friends!
My name is Eve Levin, my artist name is Raenite (ray-night). A neighbor is helping me create this GoFundMe appeal and my Illinois sister and brother-in-law will be the administrators because I cannot use computers and cell phones.
Starting in 2003, I began the fight to save my life from chemical & electrical poisonings and injuries from a car-deer collision. My mother, Penny Levin, who is now 99 (and worked at Trader Joe’s Sunnyvale, CA store until she was 88), is the only person in the entire world who stuck with me the entire 10 years I worked to heal.
In 2014, my mom Penny needed help and did not want to move in with anyone nor into a nursing home. I came back to California from Iowa to stay in her apartment and help her. I became her sole caregiver over these 11 years. We've worked through many injuries and illnesses and now as I write to you, after a recent rapid decline, she is physically in her hospice bed. I need your help, please.
When Penny dies, our income disappears. An added hurdle is that the payments for the month she dies and the month before she dies are retracted. We don't have that money. Most of the burial expenses are prepaid, but we still have some of the mortuary costs coming. We also do not have the money to clear the credit card balances used for health care expenses.
I will soon be eligible for a small retirement pension from work-years prior to my health challenges. I ask for your donations to help stabilize me in this transition period as I lose my dear, dear 21 years life partner. Thank you for your assistance.
Best wishes & love,
Eve Levin aka Raenite