Dimitra Clark - Beloved Mother, Grandmother - 8/27/1959 - 5/6/2023

It is with heavy heartbreak and grief that we as the children of Dimitra Clark share the news of our mom's passing at 8:08 AM on May 6th, 2023. She was 63 years old. She loved writing, reading, taking care of her grandchildren and cats, LOTR, Star Trek, and many other passions she loved to share with her friends and family.

If you knew her, you know Dimitra was a beacon of love, humor, and compassion in dark times and places. She was always there to be a mom for anyone in need that didn't have a loving and stable home to go back to. She decided early on that her steadfast mission in life was to fight for those that she could see needed protecting, especially children, in all the ways she'd wished adults fought for her as a young woman. She truly was a warrior, fiercely independent and self-sufficient, and always put love above all.

We as her children didn't ever have much growing up. She made personal sacrifice after sacrifice over many decades to keep her loved ones safe, sheltered, and fed, working multiple jobs her entire career to raise and provide for her children as a single mother, overcoming indescribable hardships. Her love for her family, friends, and beloved cats was unwavering, and it was our great privilege to create some small miracles for her at the end of her life to bring her some peace and ease her passing, such as reuniting her with long-lost children and family.

Diagnosis and financial aftermath

Dimitra was diagnosed with kidney cancer last year and immediately began a multi-spectrum treatment that unfortunately proved ineffectual. After a courageous battle with an aggressively-spreading disease that moved from her lymph nodes to the liver, lungs, bones, and finally her brain necessitating emergency neurosurgery and causing a loss of mobility and ultimately speech, she passed away peacefully on hospice care, bathed in the light and love of her friends and family.

Her final days of consciousness and speaking, while indescribably painful and often incredibly upsetting, were spent largely in laughter, song and ultimately comfort, surrounded by her children and grandchildren as she bravely fought her disease in pursuit of a little more time with those that mattered most to her.

The rapid deterioration in her health over mere weeks left her children scrambling to coordinate expenses related to her care accommodations, her end-of-life wishes, last-minute travel costs, cremation, organizing the memorial service, cross-country re-homing transportation for her cats to live with her children (and euthanasia for some with disease), and countless other costs that we were unable to absorb with our cash on hand. Moreover, we all faced a substantial time gap in caring for Mom where none of us were working, and thus not earning.

Instead, we expended savings, we took out loans, we went into debt, we pooled resources to share the costs, and we exhausted every avenue in prioritizing our mom's peace, comfort, and - moving forward - the honoring of her dying wishes despite any financial burden.

What your donations support

We as her children had resolved to create this fundraiser weeks ago while our mom was still fighting to keep her faculties. At that time, the focus of the campaign was to be aimed at the ballooning costs of her care and all the expenses going into facilitating an end-of-life for her that met the high standards that she deserves for all she's given the world.

However, the situation progressed rapidly. We found ourselves fully occupied day-to-day with helping bring her comfort, overseeing her care as she was transferred from home to nursing facility to hospital, keeping her care team informed of existing and emergent symptoms, helping manage her pain, and rushing to create an end-of-life plan with her mere days before her brain cancer took her ability to speak to us. Now the scope of our need also includes after-life services like cremation, as well as many additional flights, arrangements, and near-future expenses in laying Mom to rest.

In Loving Memory

If Dimitra ever had a positive impact on your life or someone you know, please consider donating to or re-sharing this campaign to help make her children whole in their lengthy endeavor to ensure her peace, dignity, comfort, and the fruition of her final wishes.

If Dimitra's spirit really is watching over us all from afar as a cosmic traveler as she promised in her final moments, she will greatly appreciate your generosity in helping facilitate her final influences upon this world.

-Sam, Dave, Levi, Moriah