Help Melinda during a Heartbreaking and Terrifying Time

Yesterday, June 18, 2024, my mother’s life partner, best friend, and the rock of her life was leaving work to go home and pick her up so they could finally go grocery shopping. As he was pulling down the road, Tom suffered a massive heart attack, and had passed once EMS arrived. Recently, the place where Tom worked as a kitchen manager shut down for a couple of months to change the concept of the restaurant. Tom filed for unemployment, but had not received any financial compensation. They were coasting on empty until Tom’s first paycheck once the restaurant reopened. This was the paycheck they were going to go use to finally get food in their fridge again. Tom Niebieski and my mother had been together for 22 years, and during those years, my mother’s health had gone from her being able to walk with pain to her being nearly completely physically disabled. She has undergone 34 major operations, including a very serious spinal surgery that narrowly saved her from complete paralysis. Tom was the sole breadwinner in their relationship for the past 15 years, and they lived a very meager lifestyle. This meager lifestyle has come crashing down around my mother in the very sudden passing of Tom.

They were never legally married, which, many of you know, complicates things tremendously in the event of someone’s death. My mother, Melinda Cloutier Chapman, has been a rock for so many people in her life. She has been taking care of others emotionally, financially, and sometimes even by letting them live with her for her entire life. From supporting her alcoholic father through the horrendous disease known as cirrhosis of the liver to being the primary caregiver of her lower functioning, bipolar brother at the age of 25, my mother has remained a champion and advocate for the weak and suffering. Every major holiday, my mother still makes up plates of food for her neighbors and anybody that she knows that spend their holidays alone. She has provided her boundless love, words of wisdom, and has been a shoulder to cry on for countless people throughout her life, and she has now been thrust into a very harrowing and terrifying time. Tom has worked in kitchens all over Louisville and has been a mentor and support for many people. Tom helped my mother take care of our family through financial means, giving rides, providing a place to sleep, and being a rock of support to all who knew him.

If my mother or Tom has touched you in anyway or in reading their story you feel moved to do so, I am asking, begging you to donate anything you can in this heartbreaking time. All money received will go towards the most basic life necessities: food and shelter. It’s often said it takes a village, and no one knows that as much as someone who has just abruptly lost everything. Thank you for taking the time to read this, share this, and contribute to a woman who would do the same for anyone.