Save a Family Business - Eiffel Tower Pastry Shop

My Mom and I run a family bakery: The Eiffel Tower Pastry Shop. I’m not going to lie - it’s pretty great. We get to spend our days baking cakes and cookies together. Don’t get me wrong - it’s hard work, but when you love your coworkers, it’s a pretty sweet gig.

Mom and I both got sick around Thanksgiving. We took Covid tests, and they came back negative, but they were wrong. Mom started feeling better, but after a couple of weeks, she started feeling worse. Her oxygen saturation was way too low. We rushed her to the hospital in November, and then again in December. I did my best to get as much holiday baking done as I could, but splitting my time between the hospital and the bakery was hard. (I didn’t get a lot of sleep this December). She had ups and downs, but we thought they were on the right track for her treatment.

Then at the end of December, she tanked. They were giving her more and more oxygen, but it just wasn’t enough. They moved her to the ICU, intubated her, and told us that it was time to say goodbye. There are no words that can explain the feeling.

I held her hand for days, terrified to let go, knowing that it could be my last moments with her. The medical staff in the ICU pulled out every move they knew, and to their surprise, she survived. Her lungs started to stabilize, and they turned off the sedation. But she wouldn’t wake up. After a week, they did a CT, an MRI, and an EEG. Everything looked okay, but in the end it took her almost two weeks to wake up. Finally, after almost a month in the ICU, I heard her say “I love you” again. (I wasn’t the only one crying).

She’s still very weak from being immobile for so long, and unable to move her arms and hands. Her legs are a little stronger, but as she says, she’s “stuck”.

Then on Thursday, we got some news that no one saw coming. Since Mom’s woken up, she’s hasn’t been able to see anything; she’s been completely blind. It looks like both of her optic nerves have been damaged, and they don’t think her vision will come back.

I was able to cover the bills for January, but I’ve totally exhausted our contingency fund. Mom said “we have to make cakes”, but I told her that that would mean that I couldn’t be here with her, and she didn’t have a great day after I said that.

I’m much more comfortable offering help than asking for it. But I’m realizing that I can’t do it on my own right now. I love my Mom, and I can’t abandon her while she’s blind and unable to move. I also love my business, and the thought of losing it is heartbreaking. Beyond the fact that we’ve invested so much love and effort into it, our customers are our community. I can’t imagine life without all of you.

I just need to buy more time.

More time to get Mom stabilized. More time to get some sense of how we make things work with the new challenges we’re facing.

So I’m asking for help. Help to keep our lights on and production staff paid. Anything helps. And if you can’t donate, I totally understand. Come grab a brownie when you can, or just send some good vibes our way.

Love from,

Erin and Brenda