Lightening the Load for the Man Who Carried Our Family.
My dad would never ask for help, so I’m quietly asking on his behalf.
Over the last few years, my dad has carried more than most people ever should. In an 18-month span, he lost his oldest son, my brother Danny, and then his wife of 45 years, my mom JoAnn.
When Danny passed away, there was no life insurance. My dad handled everything himself. I remember showing up to the funeral home and later to St. Michael’s for the funeral Mass, and everything had already been taken care of. He never talked about the cost or the stress—he simply made sure his son was honored with dignity.
Eighteen months later, when my mom passed away, it was the same. Quietly and without complaint, my dad once again took care of everything.
My dad worked for the same company for 32 years, and for most of our lives our family’s insurance came through his job. When he retired in 2019, that security went away. My mom continued working and had insurance through her employer, and things were stable again for a while.
Then in June of 2023, everything changed. My mom was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and told her illness was terminal.
At first she tried to keep working, but the chemotherapy made her so sick that she eventually had to resign. When she lost her job, she also lost her health insurance and life insurance. From that point on, my dad paid for high-deductible, high-premium insurance plans completely out of pocket while also covering her care.
For the next two and a half years, he devoted himself entirely to my mom. He took her to every chemotherapy treatment, every doctor’s appointment, every hospital stay, and every surgery or diagnostic test. He cooked for her every day. As my mom used to say, “He fed me even when I wasn’t hungry.” They cried together on the days when that was all they had the strength to do.
My mom turned 65 in September and finally qualified for Medicare. She passed away just one month later.
When it came time for hospice care, my dad placed her in a Catholic hospice house so she could be surrounded by faith and peace. There was a daily out-of-pocket cost, but he never mentioned that part. What he talked about was how a priest, minister, or deacon came almost every day to pray with her. On the tenth day there, she passed away.
One of my mom’s final wishes was to be buried in Kentucky. In the first week of November 2025, my dad honored that promise. My brother Danny’s cremated remains and my mom’s were buried together during a Catholic graveside service just a few miles from where my mom and her siblings were raised, surrounded by generations of family.
In a beautiful tribute to my mom’s strength, my dad asked that all of the pallbearers be women. When the hearse arrived, four women carried a single wooden coffin. Prayers were said, stories were shared, and my mom and brother were laid to rest together—mother and son reunited in eternal peace.
Through all of this, my dad never once asked for help.
He is an incredibly private person. In fact, he’s about as far from social media as you can get—much closer to living in a cave than having a Facebook account. He would never feel comfortable asking for assistance, which is why I’m doing it quietly on his behalf.
The medical bills, insurance costs, hospice care, and funeral expenses were all paid out of pocket, and they have added up to far more than anyone should have to carry alone.
If you feel moved to help lighten that burden for him, our family would be deeply grateful. And if all you can offer is a prayer or kind thought, that means just as much.
Thank you for taking the time to read our story.
I can never be JoAnn, and I can never be Daniel. But I can do my best to make sure my dad knows he’s not carrying this alone. I can be Emily.
Edit: it looks like GoFundMe is automating my goal based off of money raised, but the amount of money I am trying to raise for my dad is $50,000. I never want to come off as being dishonest if the goal starts to move just know it is a setting to help promote donation.