Please Help Poor Widow of Donnie E. Homan, Sr.

Losing my husband of 20 years late last night has made this the worst Valentine's Day humanly possible. No one should have to write an obituary for their husband on Valentine's Day. Donnie was the love of my life. He was my whole world. He was the only one who had my back in life all these years. Here is a picture of us on December 13, 2008, when I was 41 and he was 66 when we both still had our health and still had some hope that something would work out for us.

At approximately 10:30 pm Monday, February 13, 2023, his beautiful hazel eyes looked up at me for the last time as he struggled for breath, unable to speak. I had just brought him his favorite sandwich that he never took a bite out of that he asked for moments earlier.

The congestive heart failure and strangulated hernia that doctors refused to operate to fix due to risk factors with his heart condition and age—were made worse by extremely impoverished living conditions in substandard housing where every single day was a struggle just to survive—finally caught up with him.

I was Donnie's unpaid caregiver for these past several years 24/7. In my state (Pennsylvania)—like several others—unpaid "informal" elder caregivers don't get financially supported under current existing social safety net programs. My only access to a steady income was his social security check, which was never enough to support two people and it stopped the moment he died.

So I'm not only all alone without any family since he was the only family I had.

I'm not only without my soulmate—without the only person in the world who struggled alongside me and was there for me every step of the way through a very difficult life in poverty that we were never able to climb out of despite having made superhuman efforts.

I'm not only left without a wonderful man and lifemate whose heart rejoiced with me when good things happened, and ached for me and with me, every time my hopes and dreams got crushed one by one over all the years that I struggled and tried only to never have anything work out.

I've also just been made an instantly destitute 55 1/2-year-old widow unable to meet final expenses and move forward all alone in life without real support.

Over the past 20 years, Donnie was the only one in my corner. He was a pillar of strength for me.

It is beyond heartbreaking to lose the love of my life, my partner in everything, forever.

Given that being his caregiver was my full-time 'round-the-clock job these past several years, I'm also without immediate paid employment prospects (other than food delivery gig work) since I have no recent experience, no impressive portfolio, no recent professional references, and no platform—while also up against the wall of age discrimination.

I have no resources left to "just keep trying" with, and no income—the earliest I can collect a widow's benefit from his social security is age 60, at a drastically reduced rate (71%) of what his benefit amount ( which was $1100/mo before the boost went into effect as of January 2023—he only lived long enough to get two checks with that boost).

I'm not "just a loser begging for a handout", I am somebody who's been a devoted wife and Donnie's sole unpaid full-time 24/7 caregiver with little to no help and support. I was certainly somebody to Donnie—the most wonderful husband a woman could have.

I didn't expect to lose him so suddenly. I didn't expect to lose him the night before Valentine's Day. I didn't expect him to be the most precious gift I ever could have hoped for that I wouldn't be allowed to keep.

Social Security said I had to make an appointment for getting the ONE TIME death benefit for Donnie of $255 and the soonest appointment they have available for me is April 10th.

As far as social security's widows’/dependent survivors' benefits, I’m not eligible to get anything until after I turn 60—a little over 5 years from now. I don't have a 5-year runway. I don't even have a 5-week runway. I have NO living family for help, and Donnie's family didn't help with anything when he was still alive while I was taking an unaffordable financial hit as his full-time unpaid caregiver, and they got mad that they had to pay for his cremation when he died since I had NO MONEY.

Most urgent pressing needs:

• $1000 by March 3 to keep my electricity from being shut off. Had Donnie gotten his soc sec boost a year ago, the bills wouldn't have fallen so far behind despite paying what we could after unaffordable utility rate hikes last year with nowhere near enough help from LIHEAP to cover it.

• $1995 for back due house taxes to avoid homelessness come April (as a result of no/not enough income, and no help).

• $1200 for car repair so I can work delivery gigs to support myself (computer got half-bricked by a Mac OS update a week after the car broke last year and I can't afford to get that fixed either, and I haven't had ANY luck with getting ANY remote jobs as an older lady). I begged for help with the car repair last year and got almost nothing. Had I been helped back in January of 2022 when the car broke down, I could have earned at least SOME income before Donnie's condition required me to be with him 24/7.

Donnie was getting a small $132/mo pension from the IAM pension fund for the 16 years he worked in a foundry before being disabled from a workplace injury. The IAM pension organization told me it can take up to 60 days after they get a copy of Donnie's death certificate from me before one of their pension analysts determines how much total is left in Donnie's pension benefit and what—if anything—I can get as his widow if they determine I'm a beneficiary. Since he was widowed before we met and got married and was already receiving his IAM pension, that's all up in the air.

Dusckas Funeral Home told me they won't have a copy of Donnie's death certificate until 10-14 business days from now.

Yes, I'm asking for help because I desperately need it as a poor widow who's done nothing BUT "try harder" throughout my life—a life I am now forced to continue all alone in my mid-50s and poor health from Crohn's disease and diabetes in a world that has not been kind to me (and that's putting it mildly).