My Mother Yovanka Perez Meynard’s Funeral

My name is Milena Arauz, my sister Anaiti Arauz and I want to share what has happened to our amazing valiant wonderful Mother, Yovanka Perez Meynard. Please help my family gather funeral expenses for my beautiful mother Yovanka’s passing in this horrible, unexpected and turbulent time for us. On January 19th, at around 7:20 PM my mom was walking back home from the Publix Grocery store on 72nd Street (Sunset) and 157th Avenue, and just after buying my baby niece’s very specific milk that’s only sold there, she was crossing the street ON THE CROSSWALK , WITH THE RIGHT OF WAY, and a reckless driver driving an enormous pickup truck hit her completely on all of her backsides and cracked the back right side of my mom’s skull. While making the thoughtless, and careless attempt of a left turn, he rammed his truck into my mom. She fell onto the street with a rapid impact, further damaging her head in a second blow, causing a “catastrophic brain injury with irreversible damage and swelling” as the doctors told us. Multiple witnesses called 911. This man clearly and RECKLESSLY, ENDANGERED MANY LIVES THAT NIGHT, especially my mother’s and my family’s. This man killed her, flipped our lives upside down, and got to drive home that night FREE back to his family, while ours is suffering every day. Many witnesses volunteered to testify that my mom very well followed the law and that she had the right of way, literally walking on the crosswalk during her turn to cross the street with the pedestrian light signal ON and everything. My mother was the biggest Goody Two-Shoes I ever knew, everything was done by the book for her, following every single rule and every single law. She was such a law-abiding citizen and a caring considerate woman. She followed absolutely every single law to the tea. Upon arrival at the closest hospital with an ICU at around 7:55-8:00 PM (35-40 minutes after my mom’s head was cracked open), they had to open my Mother’s skull even more in an attempt to reduce brain swelling. There was improvement at first, but a quick unstable decline as the days went on. She passed away a week later after she came in on January 26th, 2023. My mom, my older sister, and I fought for her life every single day that she was in the hospital. From hospital staff not wanting to perform tests on her, not wanting to treat her, refusing treatment because she didn’t have health insurance, and threatening to take us out of the hospital room just because we were begging and pleading for them to do everything they could to save her life, we were SO incredibly mistreated at the hospital and we believe my mom was neglected by them. We have suffered a traumatic, immense, and INTENSE loss, in such a horribly disgusting way. And as my beautiful mother Yovanka’s daughters, we want JUSTICE for her and to lay her to rest with DIGNITY AND RESPECT as SHE DESERVED. She did right by so many, but it seems like no one did right by her. These have been the worst days of our lives. It is with such IMMENSE pain and stress that we ask for help for her funeral costs because in Florida it supposedly doesn’t matter if you got ruthlessly hit and killed on the crosswalk buying your baby granddaughter's milk, we still have to worry about covering her funeral, and our insurance claim is having complications and we are at risk of taking too long to bury her. My sister and I especially, as well as our whole family want to experience her funeral on the 2nd and 3rd of February, mourn her properly, send her off to heaven properly, and then celebrate her amazing miraculous birthday that would have been the 4th of February. She passed at 59 years old and was about to make it to 60. She was perfectly healthy. The funeral home is telling us we have to pay in full before service and have nowhere near that amount of money. It’s always just been my Mom, older sister and me at home - and now my baby niece that she left behind. This tragedy has caused such a tumultuous uprooting of our home. Now because my mom is deceased, I, as her youngest daughter, am in charge of our apartment lease and we are at risk of losing it, and my sister and baby niece cannot live with me for contract reasons. We have grown up poor even till this moment, but my beautiful Mami did EVERYTHING in her power to ensure we had a great life and never missed anything we needed. She worked minimum wage jobs TIRELESSLY, her whole entire life since coming to the US just to provide for us and give us the best that she could. Meanwhile, she had a whole Agricultural Engineering degree from Nicaragua and the University of Plovdiv in Bulgaria. My mother IS a brilliant woman, with valuable morals, a PURE HEART, an inventive beautiful mind, childlike wonder, and a gentle, KIND, STRONG soul. She always instilled her values in us which were:

Keep Being Kind

Be Sweet

Smile Always and Eternally

Love Every Second

Be Grateful

Focus on Yourself

BE STRONG

Follow Your Heart

Do The Right Thing - ALWAYS

Take Care of The Planet (she was in love with plants, animals and agriculture)

Look Towards The Sky During Your Difficulties

And to ALWAYS Treat Each Other with Care, Love, and Respect

Her Values shined in EVERYTHING that she did, she did EVERYTHING with intention and LOVE.

May God Bless Her Beautiful Heart and Soul. WE LOVE YOU MAMI <333

I hope you all reading this can understand the gravity and difficulty of this situation and take one less thing to worry about off our to-do list. Please share this fund with everyone you know, on social media, and across group chats. We kindly appreciate any help, support, and sharing. May you be blessed.

PS: Thanks to my amazing best friend Ashley De Los Santos for starting this gofundme for us and my Mother <3 She did it even though I didn’t ask her to and this is what she originally wrote for the fund’s description:

“Hi I am helping my best friend help raise funds for her mothers funeral costs. She was an amazing woman who brought joy, light and cups of tea to everyone she met! Please donate what you can to help lay this beautiful kind woman to rest”