Helping the Woolperts in Their Time of Loss

Earlier this week, my mom called me with horrific news: my brother had been in a serious accident while biking to work in Japan.

We learned his heart had stopped in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. We learned his neck had been broken but that he was stable.

Yesterday, we learned the doctors do not expect him to ever regain consciousness. The machines will keep his heart beating long enough for us to fly to Japan to say goodbye - but the reality is that he is already gone.

It is awful and horrific and deeply, profoundly unfair. As if that weren’t tragic enough, he was the primary breadwinner for his family. Prior to the pandemic, he had tried to start his own business, and unfortunately due to COVID that ended up putting them into debt. In the summer of 2021, he was hospitalized for a different life-threatening issue, which led to an additional $15,000 in medical bills (of note is that while Japan has a public healthcare system, the government only covers 70% of expenses). While struggling to make sense of what happened, his wife and daughter are worrying about covering rent, utilities, groceries – and faced with planning a funeral in a country where such expenses average over $20,000.

I am writing this through tears. Those of you who knew my brother knew he loved to laugh, and loved even more to make people laugh. He was also one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. The sudden news of his departure has shattered the lives of his family. Anything you can do to ease their burden as they try to pick up the pieces would be greatly appreciated.