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Baker Family End of Life Costs

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We know it can be stressful to ask for help from your friends, but all of us want to support you. And to this end, we have created a GoFundMe page for Laurel Baker to reconstruct her life, spend less time worrying about finances and to help this only child with the end of life costs to bury her mother and only living relative who passed away on Christmas Day.
Let’s give them a happy ending to the sad story of Betty and Laurel Baker.
We’ve all heard, ‘You’re not alone and you don’t have to pay for everything by yourself.’ But as an only child of an only child, your family consists of being alone and lonely. You don’t have the abundance of siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins to fight and reconcile with. You don’t have anyone to share the burden of grief. You only have yourself. You only have your mother. And when the time comes when your mother needs you because she’s getting to the age where she can’t drive to the store anymore or go bowling with her friends, you pack up your apartment and put it all in storage, hang up your traveling gear and say ‘so long’ to the life you once had and for the next 13 years you live, sleep, eat and breathe with your cat Boo-Boo in the living room pull-out couch of your mother’s one bedroom apartment. You take a part-time job to help make ends meet and put the rest of your life on hold because you are the responsible one who makes sure the rent is paid, the electricity stays on, the Thanksgiving dinner is cooked, and Christmas decorations are put up and taken down. You make sure your mother eats by fixing her meals and snacks, and taking her meds. You wash the dishes, buy groceries at the store, do her taxes, take her to appointments, and clean. Clean the kitchen, the bathroom, clean your mother, change her and her bedding and her clothing. Every day. Every week. Every month. Every year. For 13 years. Sure, there’s reprieves, stolen hours when a care-giver takes your place and you can get away to eat a meal out or watch a movie with a friend, but you can never let your guard down, you are always on constant alert, adrenaline at the ready. Because it only takes an instant as you’ve learned, for your mom to get the wild idea that she can still get up and make it to the bathroom by herself only to lose her balance and fall. And as the years slowly slip by, your determined mother clings stubbornly to life and the fear of dying, her days spent watching baseball games and General Hospital on TV, listening to the news and reading her Nora Roberts books until her eyesight gives out, and watching TV loses its appeal. Until the day comes, and you can no longer care for her in the apartment she’s lived in for more than 27 years and she is taken to the Hospice Home where a week and one day later, on Christmas Day, she slips away. And forever and ever, in your memory this is how you remember your mother’s passing.
But what does tomorrow bring for someone who has devoted the past 13 years to caregiving of their mother? And how does one pick up the pieces of their life and afford living in San Diego in a part-time job? For anyone who has gone through a life-changing event such as the one Laurel is going through, you may know the challenges she faces. With only a part-time job and living in the same apartment that she shared with her mom, Laurel and her cat, Boo-Boo are now faced with rent she cannot afford on her own, dissemination of her mother’s belongings and moving into a totally new and different living situation. Your contribution helps to ease this transition for Laurel. Please look into your heart and give as much as you can.
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Donations 

  • Amy Huber
    • $50 
    • 6 yrs
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Organizer and beneficiary

Linda Clukey
Organizer
La Mesa, CA
Laurel BakerQ
Beneficiary

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