Mother of Two Needs a Hand to Rise Again

Many of you know our current situation, but as I am intending on sharing publicly, please forgive my explaining again.

I have never personally done a gofundme for myself or my family and I am crying while I type this because the fact that I am willing to put myself in a position for people to know how far back my growth has receded, is not something that I can handle very well. I am a very proud, hard working, devoted single mother. I have dragged myself and my children from literal homelessness to here. THREE TIMES NOW. I am so defeated by what has occurred in my life over the last six months, that I barely have the will to continue trying, to even get out of bed most days. I have come to a point where I do not have a choice any longer, I have to ask for help in a big way or everything I have managed to defeat already, everything I have sacrificed, everything my children have had to sacrifice, will be virtually erased and I simply cannot live with that. So, here I am.

I am a 47 year old single mother of two. My oldest is an adult at 24 years old, but remains with me as he has become my youngest caretaker in my absence, for which I maintain financial responsibility for him as compensation. He is my right hand and my ride or die and I would not be alive without him. My youngest is 13 and is diagnosed with Moderate Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder and Global Delays. She did not walk until she was nearly two, speak until she was six, but with ALOT of work and research and tears and hugs, she has progressed into her best self as a fully verbal, honor roll student with a sassy attitude, a talent for creating stories based on her own original characters, has a heart of gold and full of deep empathy and has a dark and sneaky, subtle sense of humor that is just the absolute best! She has touched so very many lives and continues to make strides and achieve things that I was told she would never be able to do. She is truly an angel on earth and she gives me reason to take a breath each morning when I wake. The three of us are a unit. A squad. A team. We have surmounted so many obstacles together and celebrated so many victories and there is nothing on earth or in the entire universe that could tear us apart. My children are my life. I dare anyone to try to dispute that. This is why I come to you with this gofundme.

In June, I was employed at Michael's as their Customer Experience Manager. A position I took two years before, in order to gain a retirement plan and multiple life insurance policies to try to help my kids in the inevitable event of my passing. I did not want to work there. I cried all the way there my first day. As time passed, I grew to enjoy it more and the people I worked with became like family to me. So I had believed. On June 30th, I was working with our special needs employee, helping him with orders he was picking for me when I was called into the office by the GM and HR on the phone. I was terminated that day with no real reason as to why. There was some talk about some tardiness, which I was hired on having fully disclosed that there would be days I wasn't going to be on time. I have a school aged child and a second job. I had been doing things the same way for two years with no warnings, no write ups, nothing. I can't begin to describe how shocked I was that my GM, who wholly relied on me to be the most dependable employee, showing for every single shift for two years, who called on me when huge jobs needed to get done in a pinch, who used me to coach every employee, straighten out every internal disagreement...sat there entirely silent while I was fired without reason. There was no defending of my ethic, no attempting to negotiate any of it. Just silence. Which is how I left my store, ten minutes later. It was a devastating experience. And was undoubtedly going to be a struggle for the kids and I. I was ok though. I knew that I worked myself to the bone for that store and those people and I had been done wrong. Not a thing I could have done differently that would have changed what happened. I still thought I'd just get another job quickly and we'd bounce right back into it. That was until the following week.

The next week I was driving my Camry on 33 and hammered the gas to pass someone. I heard an audible POP and then my car was suddenly very loud. The following night, the lights on my dashboard went out while I was driving and suddenly, my car made a weird noise and slowly lost all power. My Camry shut off entirely while I was driving it. I restarted her and was able to get around the corner to home. The car did not leave my street again until the tow truck came to take her to the junk yard. Totaled. Timing chain went and tore up the motor. The pop I had experienced was my flex pipe breaking. The car was a 2010. It was not worth even half of what it would have cost to fix it. I stood on my porch and cried, sobbed as though my precious cat had died, as the guy pulled her up on the truck. That car, I knew, was my lifeline. And it was going to the junkyard. A truly devastating blow. I had bought that car with my own money, first car I ever bought all by myself after the divorce. It was my means of providing for my kids. And now it is gone.

Skip ahead a full month. I receive some good news finally, amidst all the bad news. The Pennsylvania Unemployment Tribunal had found in my favor on my appeal and I received a letter stating what I needed to hear badly by then, that my termination was not a result of anything that I had done. Therefore, I was granted Unemployment Compensation. It didn't matter to me that the amount of the pay was less than half the income I had lost. I was just so glad to have SOMETHING coming in and grateful to have been validated by their decision.

Shortly thereafter, the man I had been with for eight months, who I was head over heels for, who I had believed to be a genuinely good and decent man, possibly the one I was going to finally end my search with, abruptly decided that he no longer wanted a relationship with me and removed himself entirely from our lives and we have not heard from him since. I was physically and mentally crushed by it. I was so confused and so shocked and felt as though I had been lied to for the previous eight months. And my kids really took to him and it hurt me that yet another man had walked out on them too. I only add this because I want everyone to understand the level of absolute destruction I am facing. I simply cannot maintain my strength underneath all of this. It has been months of adding trauma after trauma with no end in sight.

All the while, I was putting in a MINIMUM of two applications a day on Indeed, as well as other applications on other job sites and on individual company websites. I had several interviews that went well, but for one reason or another did not work out. To date, I have put in 234, yes, you read that correctly, TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR applications for employment. Those are JUST the ones on Indeed which are recorded in my account. I haven't been sitting around just ignoring the fact that I am unemployed. I HATE NOT WORKING! And I have pushed myself to keep looking, keep applying, but nothing has worked out. Friday of last week, I finally got a job with the right pay and great hours. I didn't want the particular job, but it didn't matter what I want, I had to take something! So, I started to breathe a little easier. Then, Monday of this week, I follow up and am told my onboarding would be emailed Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning, I did in fact receive the onboarding information. However, along with said onboarding was another email with several requests for documents, etc. Two of these requested documents were for copies of my current car registration and Dec page of my current car insurance policy, both of which, had to be in my name. It was not listed in the requirements for hire that I was to have my OWN vehicle at all, just a valid license. I immediately emailed them to inquire and because of the travel on company time from one site to another, the company requires floating managers to have an insured vehicle in their name. Which, we all know, I do not have.

All of my hope just completely drained from me. So now, just two weeks before Christmas, which I have essentially had to forego entirely, I am back to square one and with my very last Unemployment check having gone to pay the electric bill, I am now completely destitute, paying for Ray's ice cream with quarters.

It guts me to not be able to do Christmas this year. But I don't have a choice. I actually can handle that. My reason for giving in and making this go fund me is because I am mentally already past Christmas, looking at what lies ahead, with zero income and three people to support with NO VEHICLE AND NO JOB!! I cannot get a vehicle without a job to save for one. My savings have all been depleted just to have gotten by over the last six months. But I can't get a job to save for a car...if I don't have A CAR!! It's like I am stuck in this unending cycle that is continually spinning me around and around with the same outcome every time. I am so stuck in this hole and can forsee no way to get out without finding a way to get a car. And in the meanwhile, I have to keep the electric and gas and phones on. I am so very fortunate to have a pair of friends who made it a point to make absolutely sure that my children and I had a roof over our heads despite my relentless misfortune and financial insecurity, so while I owe them my life x 100, I do not have that concern at the moment as well, but the burden of guilt for not being able to make rent is very, very heavy for me and adds to my feelings of complete defeat.

It's Christmas. I am very saddened by the state of my life and cannot find any of the happiness, peace or joy that the season usually hold for me. I am doing all I can to try to still make a Christmas of sorts for my kids, especially my special girl, who is still only just 13 and deserves so many more years of magical Christmases. They both do. I am at a loss. I am putting myself out there and asking you for help. I am not expecting that this stupid gofundme is going to raise enough to pay the bills or buy a car, but it might give me a little hope that I could have a chance. That's all. If you're able and see fit to donate even a dollar to our cause, we would be so very grateful. I have been blessed with some of the most loving, giving, caring people who I get to call friend and I would not be anywhere or anyone without you all. Thank you so much. Thank you for reading. Please share.

I will be ok. I have a reputation for burning things around me and myself straight to ash and then, from the ashes, rising again like the Phoenix. This time, I am just not strong enough to get on my rise alone. Thank you for helping me and my babies.