Alexa Rogers

I want to explain a little more about why this move means so much to our family, because this is so much more than simply deciding we want to live somewhere warmer. We are leaving a home we have loved for many years—a home filled with birthdays, holidays, laughter, milestones, and memories of our children growing up. But it is also the home where I found my oldest son, Aaron, after he died by suicide. I was the one who found him. I was the one who got him down. I was the one who screamed so loudly that my children came running out of their beds. And the beautiful but blank eyes of my oldest baby are something I cannot erase from my mind. My children were home that day. Before Aaron was taken from our home, we stood together on the sidewalk with the emergency chaplain and prayed the Lord’s over Aaron’s body before he left our home for the last time; in a body bag. Even writing those words still feels impossible. That was my baby. That is not supposed to happen. Since July 26, 2025, I have tried to continue living in the place where the worst moment of my life happened. But trauma does not care that the house is beautiful. It does not care about the good memories that came before it. Sometimes all I have to do is walk past the open basement door and my body remembers before my mind even has a chance to catch up. I live in a constant state of fight or flight. The trauma has affected me physically in ways I never expected. I have lost a tremendous amount of weight—not intentionally—and I am receiving medical care and medication to help me regain it. The doctors, therapists, and grief professionals helping me have all recognized how difficult remaining in this environment has been, especially for me as the person who found Aaron. I have finally had to accept something that is incredibly painful: I do not believe I can truly begin healing while continuing to live inside the place where my greatest trauma occurred. And our family desperately needs healing. The last eight years have brought more medical crises, fear, grief, and uncertainty than I ever imagined one family could carry. Our daughter Ailyn was born medically complex and has endured three open-heart surgeries, including months in the cardiac ICU. She has had countless hospitalizations, including times when we came frighteningly close to losing her. Then epilepsy entered our lives. Her seizures eventually became so severe that we had to turn to a medical ketogenic diet along with numerous medications just to try to control And for the final 2½ years of Aaron’s life, he silently fought an incredibly difficult battle with mental illness. Aaron did what people tell someone struggling with mental illness to do. He went to treatment. He saw doctors. He took his medications. He participated in therapy. He kept trying. And despite all of that, we lost him to suicide on July 26, 2025. Now our eight-year-old daughter is under hospice care. We do not know how much time we have left with Ailyn. And that has fundamentally changed how we look at time. We are not choosing a random place on a map and moving because we think it sounds fun. We are moving somewhere where Ailyn can enjoy the outdoors nearly year-round. Somewhere she can open the door and go outside instead of spending months watching Wisconsin winter through the glass. Somewhere she will have sidewalks and room to practice rolling and steering her wheelchair independently. Somewhere she can go to a splash park —one of her absolute favorite places in the world—and play in the water as often as her body allows without having to pack up our mobile hospital Somewhere our children can hop on a golf cart, meet friends, go outside, explore parks, swim, fish, play, laugh, and simply experience what it feels like to be kids. Because our children have lived through things most adults will never experience. They have watched their sister fight for her life. They have lived through 7 month long CICU stays. They have watched seizures and medical emergencies become part of everyday life. They lost their brother. They were home the day their brother died. And now they are living with the reality that their little sister is receiving hospice care and we know the pain that comes with losing 1/8th of our family….. we want to make sure we make the most of the time we have left with her! They deserve some ordinary childhood memories They deserve memories that someday might be bright enough to sit beside the painful ones. We cannot erase what has happened to our family. We would never want to erase Aaron. But we desperately want the opportunity to create enough joy, love, adventure, connection, and beautiful memories that our children’s lives are not defined only by the hardest things they have survived. We actually began this process months ago. Our Wisconsin home had 20 years of stuff we began packing up last winter. We worked on the areas of our home that needed attention while still making sure Ailyn remained stable. Put it for sale in September, and we accepted an offer within the first week. Our house is not back on the market because something is wrong with it. Two separate transactions fell apart because of circumstances involving buyers’ home-sale contingencies—not because of our home Our plans were to be moving within the coming month. Instead, suddenly, we are back to square one. And that is why we are asking for help. We need the proceeds from our current home to make this move possible. Until Any donations received will go toward our moving expenses and the down payment needed to get our family into our new home. We are doing everything possible to sell our house. We are praying the right buyer walks through the door when we show it this weekend. But time feels very different when your child is under hospice care. We cannot simply assume there will always be another summer. Another birthday. Another year. I see Ailyn rolling down a sidewalk in her wheelchair. I see her splashing in water with that enormous smile on her face I see my parents next door so I can help them w/ their health needs yet making sure they keep their independence. I see healing. I see memories we have not made yet. And after everything our family has endured, I desperately want the opportunity to make great memories. Although Ailyn is under hospice care, whenever her life comes to an end, I want to be able to look back and know that we did everything within our power to make her happy! I want that for all of my children. We are not giving up. We are trying to move forward. We are trying to turn unimaginable loss into time that still has meaning and matters. We are trying to give our children a chance to simply be children again. And we are asking for help getting there. If you are able to donate, share our fundraiser, share our home listing, pray for us, or simply help our story reach the person who may be able to help—thank you. We are open to investors as long as we can meet the numbers we need. Every share matters. Every donation matters. Every person who helps us move one step closer matters. We are so ready for our next chapter❤️ If you live in the Southern WI area and are looking for a 4 bed, 3 bath home, please request a showing below Our home: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/W1737-Purintun-Rd-Albany-WI-53502/88039973_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

••••As We Leave the Home We’ve Known for 20 Years•••• For 20 years, this house has been our family’s home—the place where we brought our babies home, raised our 6 children, celebrated so many milestones, and built the ordinary routines we never imagined we would one day long for. Now we’re preparing to leave it behind and begin again. I wish I could say this feels like a hopeful, simple fresh start. Instead, it feels heartbreaking, necessary, and frightening all at once. Since losing Aaron, I’ve learned how precious time is. You can earn more money and replace material things, but you can never slow time. You can’t make more time and you can’t get it back. It has become too hard for me to stay in this house. Every time I go into the basement, I see where the body bag was laid out. I see the white bathroom door that once I opened, I was changed forever & will never be the same. I remember seeing Aaron’s face and feeling how cold he was. I relive that nightmare over and over. Sometimes, when the flashbacks are bad, I can barely breathe. And everywhere I go, I’m reminded of him. I see the light pole he hid behind & asked me to come get him only 10 mins into the freshman homecoming football game, after learning he wasn’t included in his friends’ plans. I see the hockey rink he loved for so long, and remember how painful it was when he was told he was too slow and didn’t make the team. Hockey had been one of the places where he felt accepted, and losing that social outlet hurt him deeply. I see the high school he loved, where his mental illness eventually made him feel paranoid and unsafe. He was so afraid, and the voices were so real to him, that he didn’t walk in his graduation. My heart breaks a million times a day. It’s exhausting trying to wear an “I’m okay” face when I am not okay—and when the grief is written all over me. If you’ve seen me, you understand how grief can affect you physically! Some people may think moving across the country in the middle of everything we’re carrying sounds crazy. But after finding my own child—the one who made me a mom—cold, stiff, and gone, this move is not the hardest thing I’ve faced. I would live in a tent if it meant Aaron could come back. This next chapter is something our whole family desperately needs. Our new home will have my parents on one level, with space and accessibility for my mom to get around. It will also give my parents privacy while keeping them close, with a connecting door so I can pop over when they need help. They’ll be able to reach what they need by golf cart, and we can support them at home as my dad’s dementia continues to take pieces of the dad I know. The doctors have told him he should be grateful for my mom and me, and for the everyday ways we’ve helped him over the past year; but he seems to get more mean and paranoid every day. Moving him will be hard, especially as his illness changes how he sees things, but we’re trying to create a safer, more supportive way forward for all of us. We also don’t know how much time we have left with Ailyn. Her heart is slowly failing and she has too many co morbidities (seizures, bladder, ENT issues) that the outcome of surgery would likely not be well. So she is under home hospice care and we are focusing on her quality of life. She loves being outside, the sun, and the water. We want to make the most of the time we have with her and make as many memories together as we can. Moving is expensive, and the costs add up quickly. We’re also preparing for things Ailyn needs, including sensory items for her sensory room, as well as furniture that will allow her to sleep in our room with all her medical equipment. Once we have access to the new house, I’ll create an Amazon list with some of the items that would help her. I wish this were all a bad dream. I wish I could wake up tomorrow, make sure Aaron was ready for class and work, get the other kids off to school, and go back to the ordinary life I didn’t know I’d miss so much. We’re scared, and we’re grieving. But we’ve already lived through the worst thing I can imagine. Taking a leap into a new place feels possible, and we’re ready to begin. If you’re able to help us with this next chapter, we are deeply grateful. If you can’t donate, sharing our GoFundMe means so much, too. Thank you for standing beside our family and helping us make the most of the time we have.