Yesterday, March 5th, 2026, my life changed forever.

I came home from work and found my mom in my bathtub. She had passed away while watching my children and my sister’s children. It is something no daughter should ever have to see or experience. The image of finding her like that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My sister and I are both single moms, and our mom was our only help with childcare. She was always there for us and for our kids. She loved them more than anything in the world. Now, in the middle of this unimaginable grief, we are also facing the reality of trying to work and provide for our families without the one person who helped hold everything together.

Her death was completely unexpected and has shattered our family.

My mom had a life filled with so many hardships and heartbreaks, yet she was still one of the most loving, caring, and selfless people you could ever meet. She gave everything she had to the people she loved. She deserved so much more peace and happiness in this life than she ever received.

The last time I saw my mom, it wasn’t the way any child should have to remember their parent. Her face was discolored and bruised, submerged underwater. That is an image I will carry forever. I am begging for the chance to see my mom one last time looking like herself again — peaceful, beautiful, and surrounded by the love she gave so freely to others.

We want to give her a beautiful open casket funeral, so that our family and everyone who loved her has the chance to say goodbye, to hold her hand one last time, and to honor the incredible heart she had.

Unfortunately, funeral expenses — especially an open casket service — are incredibly expensive, and we simply cannot afford it on our own.

If you can help in any way, even the smallest amount, it would mean everything to our family. If you can’t donate, sharing this would also help more than you know.

Please help us give my mom one final day where she is surrounded by love, dignity, and the people whose lives she touched.

She spent her life caring for everyone else.

Now we just want to give her the goodbye she deserves.

Thank you for helping us honor her life.