For those just arriving at this page, my wife of 33 years (married October 11th, 1992) passed away on November 1st, just 16 days before her 60th birthday. We are keeping this account alive to continue to provide updates to friends and family near and far.

Previous Story (before 11/1/25)

Emily has been my wife, an incredible teacher of kids in some of the best schools in Massachusetts, my best friend and mother of my children. She has been attacked by an aggressive and rare soft tissue cancer called leiomyosarcoma. Its survival rate is poor (see https://www.leiomyosarcoma.org/leiomyosarcoma-survival-rate/ for details ) but our family has been supporting her through the past four years of fighting through radiation, surgery and chemotherapy.

Finding it early gave us hope but the cancer is relentless. Even though Emily is no longer working, I still thought we could make it with me working and a few lucky breaks. Sadly, just as we saw the cancer ramping up, wreaking havoc on her and necessitating multiple transfusions and hospitalizations I lost my university job due to a reduction in force. Her biggest surgery, high-risk and complex, was set for in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. As of this writing, she is still in the hospital. Emily’s parents have both passed, and her sisters live in another state.

So all of sudden we were faced with a new threat— how to keep our insurance and house during a time of economic crisis! We are not even discussing existing medical debt, daughter in college, dog and cat, groceries, etc. etc.

Can GoFundMe help? We have never been the type to ask for help like this, and we have found that it requires a lot of grace to accept the help we have already been offered. As a family we discussed asking for help on GoFundMe with the big three: Mortgage, Insurance, Car for one year.

Will that be enough? Some of the services required for Emily (like at home care) or whatever comes next might be beyond what we are projecting, but we continue to be hopeful that we can turn a few corners and with your help get to a period of smooth sailing.

Thanks for considering a donation.

Robert, Ruby & Magnolia

(also Ladybug and Leyna)