My name is Heather Brown. I am writing this because I am the daughter of Laverne Christner Jr. Sadly, after only a two-month battle of finding out that he had squamous cell metastatic carcinoma, stage 4 cancer, on February 2nd at 10:15 am, he passed away at home. Anyone who knew my dad knew that he was an amazing person. He wasn't in pain in October, and we went for a CT scan, and he was fine. Then we went back in December to do another CT scan, and it was everywhere. At first, they made it seem like there was hope. They had him rushed in to give him an emergency hip surgery because his right hip was shattering. We thought this was good news. When he first got home, he was walking and doing okay until a blood clot ended up forming in his other leg. He kept going to the hospital, and his leg started turning extremely red, and they said it would need to be amputated. They couldn't take the risk of doing another surgery that big. They tried to give him medicine for his blood clot, but it was not getting better, and he finally decided he wanted to come home. He was only home for 36 hours before he passed away. I had told him I loved him, and he said he loved me too, and those were his last words. He did so much for everybody else without thinking about himself. He would give the shirt off his back to give to somebody else. If anybody needed help, he was like the Jack of all trades and could do just about anything, and he would go and help. That was my dad. A complete hero in my eyes. He completely put me first after my car accident and was there with me every step of the way with therapy appointments and all, wanting to learn how to help make me independent. He became my solid foundation. He always made sure I would get the job done.

Right now, we are facing a horrible hardship. We're asking for help for funeral expenses as well as general expenses. We just received a phone call yesterday saying that the total amount the funeral cost is due within 30 days!! Mom was told she would get some of his social security after he passed away, but because she made only about $100 more, she gets absolutely nothing. She has $1,000+ in bills a month, plus we are trying to figure out how to pay for his funeral expenses when we are struggling just to make it through the month. The financial hardship that this has now created is especially hard because we're still trying to deal with the grief of losing him, and now we are in grief because this financial hardship just came through a phone call today. We want him to know that we are going to be okay. He never wanted to leave us struggling. Anytime we were, he always figured something out. If anybody could please make donations or share this, I would greatly appreciate it because at this point, we don't know what to do. My mom is taking everything extremely hard, and the news today about the financial hardship and the expense from the funeral has just been too much. It is so hard losing a parent and then to watch your other parent struggle with losing somebody they spent half their life with and knowing there's nothing you can do to help them hurts. I want to help my mom so she is not struggling. My dad always was there for my mom. He always made sure that she came first and she was okay. I'm just asking the community and friends and family that may see this that you could donate anything. It could even be a dollar anything helps and we would be grateful for it, or even sharing would be a great blessing. One of the last things I feel that I could do to honor him is to make sure that everything is taken care of and that my mom is okay.