In the Aftermath of Unexpected Death

Isn't this the second GoFundMe this family has run in less than a year? It is. It absolutely is.

Last year we were wiped out by identity theft. We lost our home. We had nowhere to go. Our friends stepped up in spectacular fashion. You can look up that GoFundMe, which has never closed even though, as is fair and proper, the incoming funds stopped coming after a bit. You want to know how we spent that money, please be apprised that it took us six weeks to land somewhere and supporting us in an inexpensive hotel for that period ran to a few thousands, that paying off debt and beginning the process of repairing our credit rating took thousands, getting necessary repair work to our car and settling into a new home under reduced circumstances took a lot more. Money does not last forever. We had an income, and we were not rolling in money, but we lived our lives, with your help.

Alas, fate does not always politely wait until you are back on your feet before kicking you to the ground again.

My beloved wife Judi has died.

It was ridiculously sudden. One day she was not ill, enjoying barbecue with friends, the next day she could not stand up, and she was slipping into delirium. She went into the hospital and lingered, hideously, four four days. She was always in danger and her chances of survival were always slim, but for two days of those four she looked like she was successfully climbing out of the abyss. The doctors were already talking about the rehab process, once she was out of danger. There seemed to be hope. Then she took a downturn, again, and within hours there was no doubt of the coming outcome. She perished Thursday evening.

To say I am shattered is an understatement. She was my emotional rock, my best friend, the source of smiles every day, the love of my life. I do not know yet how I will go on without her.

She was also, through her own income, the chief support of our family. I am a writer and my money comes in irregularly, sometimes in decent sized chunks (like last week, but delayed for a year by COVID), sometimes in tiny little amounts. I am going to have to restructure my new life as a freshly minted widower, and I will, but in the interim our fragile climb back to solvency has been slammed back to the earth. I am in big, big trouble; destitute with debt still looming.

I damn the whims of fate.

I am not the kind of person who finds this easy. It hurts me to type these words, and I am intensely self-conscious about asking for help this soon after the last time. I can tell you that I did not want the prior worst period of my life to be followed so soon by another loss that is even more primal, even more destructive. I have had no time to think, just arranging the memorial -- and I am sure that the bills for her time for the ICU, after insurance, will be coming, inevitable and unswayed by sentiment, even as we run late on bills that would have normally been her duty to pay. (She died in a distant city, in the home of a family we were pet-sitting for, so we are far from our records, from our mailing address, and...this is a pyramid, folks. It gets higher and higher.)

If you knew Judi at all, you loved her. If you know me at all, maybe you have some of that same feeling. I have to jettison pride. She has left me bereft. I will be deeply grateful for any help you can give,