Hi there! My name is River. I would like to preface this by saying there is a LOT of context needed here, so this is long and I'm really sorry about that. I hope you stick through until the end, it would truly mean everything to me.

To start, my grandmother Nona was a proud Canadian, born in Edmonton in 1930 to two immigrants from England, raised in a loving home with her older brother and younger sister. She served in the Royal Canadian Air Force alongside her eventual husband to defend people of all backgrounds and their right to freedom. She was an incredible woman who deeply touched every person she met, be it someone she knew for years or for someone she had only just met. She was positive, resilient, a hard worker, and raised two daughters that would eventually become my mother and aunt. Due to being raised in a time of need, the Great Depression affecting her childhood and formative years, my grandmother eventually ended up becoming a hoarder, only once her husband passed two years after I was born. Her spirit never wavered though, and truly only passed in 2019 because of a rapid decline in her care once placed in a facility (but that's a story for another time.)

Nona had hearing difficulties all of her life due to working next to running jets, packing parachutes and similar tasks, and since there is a program for hearing loss directly related to service in the military, she applied for the program under her own volition, no one submitted it on her behalf. Just before she died, we received notice that she had been approved for a life changing amount of money that would come in at planned intervals. Then, she passed, and once the notice of her death was received, Veteran's Affairs said that because she passed, she was not going to receive any more of the money and her estate had to pay back what was already sent. Originally, my aunt (the executor of said estate) had someone willing to work with her to appeal the decision because their reasons for recinding the amount was irrelevant to the point of the fund. It has been (at least) over a year since they have stopped responding to my aunt, not taking phone calls, nor returning her voicemails or emails. With the debt my grandmother's estate still owes, this would help immensely to help my aunt finally process her grief.

Moving on to my aunt herself. My aunt Catherine is, what I would call, a carbon copy of my grandmother in strength, intelligence, resilience, and beauty. She is a NICU nurse of over 40 years, and is one of the damn best nurses I've ever had the opportunity to meet, and there have been a lot of them. She is compassionate in her care, a strong advocate for parents of all walks of life, strives for excellence in the care of the babies she looks after, and will not take any shit from anyone, doctors and pushy families alike. I am so inspired by her to continue being kind in a world that overlooks the least of us, and I aim to learn all I can from this incredible woman. I am forever grateful that she is in my life when I have given her ample opportunity to kick me out and never look back.

Just before my grandmother was put into hospital care, my aunt had a major reconstructive surgery in her lumbar spine, which changed her life completely. She was unable to get clearance to go back to work before COVID, but she made do with what she had and did the best she could. Eventually, she is able to go back to work and continue being the person I've come to admire. However, she had to have a second surgery last year, as something started going wrong. This is where everything went downhill. After this surgery, she got a serious infection in her bloodstream, breaking the brain-blood barrier with MRSA. She went septic, and ended up spending three months in intensive care, which was an incredibly traumatic experience with problems I can't even begin to describe. She had to have a third surgery, and she was honestly a breath away from death. Her life expectancy dropped severely.

She eventually came to live with my younger brother and I while she recovered, due to her home not being a safe place for her with the hoarding situation we still haven't gotten control of. I will admit freely that I don't know the specifics of this part, as my aunt has done everything in her power to keep as much information away from me as possible, saying it isn't my problem to deal with. She is still living here with us because she cannot afford the bills that racked up while she was nearly dead in a hospital bed. She has property taxes due that she has absolutely no hopes of affording. They have given her a date (that she won't share with me) to which if she hasn't paid these taxes, she will lose her home and every last piece of my grandmother with it. If we had the money promised to my grandmother's estate by Veteran's Affairs Canada, this wouldn't ever have been an issue. But they have gone back on their word, and turned away from a woman who dedicated her entire life to serving the people of Canada and the world. It's appalling and quite frankly, I have begged her to take this to the media. She still wants to give the proper channels of doing this a try, but how is she supposed to do that when the original lawyer is stonewalling her and she can't even afford to have water in her home.

Because she is still employed as a nurse and is receiving partial pay, she doesn't qualify for a lot of the emergency financial programs here in Alberta. I have looked everywhere for help and have only found roadblocks.

I'm starting this campaign to get the immediate danger of losing my grandmother's house out of the way, and then hopefully we can go further and get this situation with Veteran's Affairs rectified and in the past. I just can't sit around anymore and wait for the world to change. Thank you for reading this far, thank you for donating and/or sharing, it truly means more to me than you will ever know. My aunt deserves to be happy, and I'm going to fight tooth and nail for her to get that happiness.

Thank you

Riv