HELP MY FAMILY RETURN MY GRANDMA’S ASHES HOME

… this is my sweet grandmother Yvonne Hatch. She’s only 64 years old, and I was JUST speaking with her days before I got the gut-wrenching news that she’d passed away. I still have a hard time even writing that. It feels wrong even though I know logically it’s not because that’d just be a sick prank to play on someone. The universe seems to be really trying hard to break me and my family lately. We had a happy family, a nice place to call home; we had been at our peak, and things were looking good for us. I proudly felt that we were a complete family. That all took a turn for the worse starting back in July of 2022 when I was robbed at gunpoint for the car my great-grandma had got me, which I fell head over heels in love with, while also in the midst of escaping what turned into a mentally, physically, and emotionally abusive relationship in the Kelseyville area. I was arrested on the way home and made it back with, little did any of us know, only DAYS to spare to say goodbye to my great-grandma before she unexpectedly passed away in her bed suddenly, which my grandmother didn’t take well at all. My grandma hadn’t ever been the same since that moment.

My great-grandma gifted us her home in her will and trust, but a family member who was jealous took it into her own selfish ways to go and steal it right from under us, kicking us to the curb and watching it all happen. We lost a lot of important things at this point in life, and we’re all feeling very defeated. We’d lost our great-grandma and the home she left us.

My grandma was in a terrible state of mind. She refused to do anything to help us help her, not realizing the fate it would eventually entail.

By the time I had made the choice to move into her apartment in Willits full-time, taking round-the-clock care of her, she’d been really going downhill, and I’d had to call paramedics multiple times, seemingly getting more frequent, and her being gone for longer periods of time each time. During this, she was at a time taken to a rehabilitation center in Cloverdale in which she was nonetheless neglected, abused, and returned to us in such a negatively progressive manner. She didn’t even know I’d really been there when I went to greet her at the transit van she’d arrived in. She was crying and saying she didn’t feel good repeatedly. I immediately noticed something was terribly wrong. Her neck looked stiff, and she, within two months, had progressively lost so much weight and had gotten to such a state that I immediately wanted to just cry. I was scared for her. This facility is what ultimately led to her life being ripped away from us so soon and in such an aggressive manner. Her diabetes made it impossible to fight off the horrible conditions they’d put her through, ultimately causing kidney failure . I didn’t think I’d ever be able to speak to her and have an actual conversation with her again, judging by the way she was. She wasn’t home for more than 3 days before I had to call 911 again. Her body was shutting down, and no circulation was going through her body. The paramedics rushed her to the hospital. I followed behind, and she’d been stabilized and given antibiotics. The doctors there took note of the abuse done by the center and were shocked I was able to take notice just in the nick of time that it was a bad emergency, being as I had no training for that sort of thing, but my mom was a nursing assistant, and I learned from her. My grandma had emergency surgery at a point as well, which was really scary, meaning it was pretty serious. I went to visit her after this, and we could speak to her as normal again. I was relieved and happy to see her back to her normal self. She’d been coherent and all. I continued visiting daily until she was transferred to another home. That I come to find out recently she’d sent HERSELF to because she didn’t want me or my little brother to have to bear the pain of finding her in her bed when she passed away, but at the time, I’d thought social services had made that choice. She always has told me she never wanted to go to a home, so I know how selfless of an act this was, and I think she knew she’d never see me again the last time I’d seen her, the way she’d been so adamant that I never leave my younger brother's side and told me to take care of him. It didn’t click, and I don’t know why.

She was always a very sweet and selfless person, at her age going and dropping everything to go to CPS and get certified as a foster parent to get my brothers out of foster care and myself too. My mom has been, like myself, given the back end of the world and wasn’t particularly favored by CPS. But since my brother, still being a minor, was now with his adoptive parent not present, my mom dropped everything and came and got him all the way from Oregon, where she has a job and life is going well for her finally there. I was left behind in her apartment, cleaning up the disaster left behind. Behind on rent two months now. PG&E will be shut off at any moment. And I was planning on moving her out of her apartment and also relocating close to my grandma in Crescent City. That is…

…until we got the devastating news from the home after numerous calls and sitting on hold for hours that on the 15th of November, she had passed away on the TENTH, and nobody was contacted. This is an extremely difficult situation for our family as she was a huge part of our life, and my mom’s struggling to gather the funds for her to be cremated regardless of all the extra shifts she’s been picking up, even going to work the day after we found out and having burst into tears when a customer asked how her day was. Please, I know she wouldn’t have hesitated to help a lot of people in the past. I hate to be one to ask for help, but we need it. Please help us bring our grandma to rest and grant her final wishes to be cremated and spread across the ocean somewhere beautiful.

It’s so very hard for me to write this, but it’s got to be done. We greatly appreciate any donations, and honestly, every single one of you will have touched our family in ways that can’t be expected from anything else. Thank you for your time, and thanks to those who are kind enough to help us.