Hi my name is Steffi, and I’m creating this GoFundMe for my mum, Rose, a woman who not only carried her family through unimaginable challenges but has done it with a heart so big and a spirit so bright that she’s touched countless people far beyond our home.

She’s survived abandonment, substantial business debt, years of overwork, brain surgery and a divorce process that seems designed to exhaust her into giving up.

She hasn’t. 

She won’t.

 And I won’t let her stand alone any longer. 

If you know my mum, even just a little, you know she’s unforgettable. She’s vibrant, loud in the best way, quirky, funny, clever, emotional, talented and deeply, deeply loving.

She builds community wherever she goes. People fall into her world because she tells stories that are raw and real, stories that remind you what it means to love, to hope, to keep going no matter the odds that may be against you. 

When she ran her cafe from 2015-2019, it wasn’t just a cafe.

It was a haven.

A small, warm universe she created with her words, her humour and her heart. People came not only for the food but for her, she built an entire online community through her facebook page Patanella and that community helped save the failing business and ultimately our house too.

People everywhere loved her because she made them feel seen, connected and understood. 

But behind all that light she was carrying a weight she never asked for. 

In 2014, on Christmas day, my dad left.

My siblings and I were 6, 7 and 11, from that moment on my mum became a single mother in the highest form, not just parenting alone but fighting alone. 

When he left, he also left behind a cafe that was failing without her knowledge and $300,000 worth of debts tied to both the business and our family home. Debt she never deserved and never had any help with. 

This is what is now recognised as economic abuse.

He paid child support for 18 months. Never offered to lighten the load he created. Meanwhile my mum was left to stretch every dollar she had, even draining the savings she set aside for her children’s futures.

She said “no” to us countless times, not because she wanted to, but because survival demanded it. 

Still she never let the weight change her heart. 

She didn’t let the fear take away her strength. 

She didn’t allow the bitterness to dim her light. 

Instead, she worked. 

She worked in the way only a mother full of love can, with relentlessly determination, sacrifice and hope. She worked fifteen hour days, seven days a week for years. She never paid herself a cent, it all went straight to the debt. She rebuilt the cafe from the ground up, made it successful again. She created a piece of her home in a cafe and the most beautiful community. 

Then in Feb 2019, she had to undergo brain surgery because she had a tumour. In May of that year, she sold the cafe, signing the papers from her hospital bed, having endured complications and five more admissions to.

She recovered with the true strength and stubbornness of an Ot, and the moment she was physically able, she went right back to working and paying the debts.

It’s the kind of strength you don’t realise is humanly possible until you’ve watched someone live it. 

For twelve years she’s done this alone and brought that debt down from $300,000 to $188,000. That number is not just money, it’s her entire heart, her time, her exhaustion, her missed sleep, her missed life.

It’s the price of her resilience. 

Unfortunately now we’re in the midst of the asset settlement, which has become its own war. 

My dad has money, a lawyer, and none of the business debts.

Mum is currently self-represented.

He’s been able to delay mediation again and again, every delay feels strategic. The first mediation session has wrapped, but a second one is on the horizon, and beyond that, an inevitable court battle.

Every extra month drains my mum a little bit more, physically, mentally and emotionally.

She is outmatched financially and he knows it. 

Currently, she and I are living with my Nonna while our home - the home she has spent 12 years trying to save - is rented out just to keep us afloat. Without proper legal representation, she could lose everything she has worked so hard for. 

This fundraiser is solely to cover costs to hire a powerful, compassionate lawyer to represent my mum, someone who can fight for her with the same ferocity and love she has poured into her family and friends. Someone who can protect her from being pushed into an unfair settlement. Someone who can help her keep the house she has bled for. 

My mum is not just a “single mother”.

She’s been the mother, the father, the financial provider, the emotional backbone. The one who woke up early, stayed up late, worked herself raw and still found a way to bring love, humour and compassion into the world.

If you’ve ever read her blog, visited her cafe, laughed with her, cried with her, or simply been warmed by her presence, you know what kind of person she is. You know how much she gives. you know how deeply she loves. 

And now, she needs help. 

Every contribution will go directly to her to cover legal representation and associated legal costs for family law mediation and asset settlement related to Rose’s case. 

Every share brings us closer to giving her the security she's earned ten times over. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read her story.