Help with son’s funeral expenses and has to drive

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Steven Dell and Brandy Chin are organizing this fundraiser.

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This is hard to do and extremely humbling. But I have no choice this is my last option. My 27 year old son died in a motorcycle accident. He was a good kid and had just gotten a job with a tech startup in Idaho as a computer engineer. He had no formal computer education but worked his way up. I’m struggling and spent half my rent money to going to Idaho. I do home repairs and this is the time of year work is scarce till after the new year. I have ptsd and it makes life difficult sometimes. When my son was 19 months old our apartment caught fire and I had to run down a tunnel of fire and through a 10’ thick fireball to save my son. I swooped him up at a full run tucking him like a football I went through the fireball and crashed through a door of my office. I had to jump on my desk to get to the window and I broke it. Instantly I couldn’t see or breathe cause of black smoke. I was about to roll out the window and land on my back when I heard his mother say hand me Sebastian. I knew there would be glass shards so I cleared it with my arm then handed him out. As soon as I felt a tug I let go and jumped out the window as fire came shooting out engulfing me in mid air. People were yelling I was on fire. I looked at the ground intending to stop drop and roll but I seen a sheet of blood pouring from my arm like a waterfall. I didn’t feel anything burning me so I said” Pat me out”. I was only smoking not on fire. I sat down and I told someone to get a towel. I had a puddle of blood on my Lap and there was a river leading to the drain. The firemen arrived quickly and all of a sudden I had 4 of them working on me and I could see the fear on their faces. I was so cold I was shaking and yelling at them to get me off the ground. Finally they put me in a warm blanket and it felt so good. I was cracking jokes as they wheeled me to the ambulance. A firefighter looked me in my eyes and asked “ How did you get your family out ? we only pull bodies out of fires like that.” I replied “what do you mean ? I wasn’t coming out without them.” It was a gas leak that caused and fueled the fire. As the ambulance left I guess I went into convulsions and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital after surgery on my arm. I have a jagged 12” scare on my forearm and a 4” one as well. My son didn’t have any smoke inhalation just a sunburn from the fire. I wasn’t burned except the top of my ears were scabbed a little. The reason I’m telling you this is that’s what caused my PTSD. The mass dump of cortisol into my brain as part of the fight or flight response fried some Nero networks causing the ptsd. The very thing that gave me the ability to save my son also made it so I couldn’t express to my son just how much I loved him. He knew I loved him but I didn’t know how to express just how much. I felt it but I just couldn’t express it. So we never got as close as we should’ve. I didn’t know I had PTSD for years till finally I went to get help for night terrors. I never remember them but was told I yell and fight at night. I loved my son but it kills me inside I couldn’t express just how much. We had a good relationship but I was never able to give him that little extra he needed. PTSD has caused a lot of problems for me. Mainly in maintaining relationships and with work. I finally just started doing handyman work for myself but it’s a constant struggle just to get by. I don’t have any money to pay for the cremation or to get to his service in California. I’m out of ideas so I’m asking for help. Please help me cremate my son and get him to California for his services. I will be grateful for any help with honoring my son . I can’t let him down. Thank you for reading this.

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