Cindy's Fund

Short Version ...
Dear donors; My name is Cindy Foss and I need your help.

-I’m a 59 year old Reiki Master and Body Psychotherapist, living in 
Somerset, NJ, a single Mom with my two young adult children.

-I have recently been the victim of an elaborate scam by professional thieves that resulted in them stealing all my savings account; $9,455.

-The scam seemed ligament, targeting Amazon Prime users. I was not the only victim.

-In an article from: newyork.cbs.local.com titled: “New scam targets Amazon Prime users”. The police detective described it as “a ligament type” of scam.

-As you may imagine, I am in a very vulnerable position now and in need of urgent assistance. I have a large quarterly property tax bill due Nov 1st for $2,064.66.

-I also have much needed plumbing repairs I planned to use the money for. They are on hold.

-This was my buffer money (that was leftover from my husband’s life insurance, who passed away suddenly in 2012) for when my work couldn’t meet the needs of my basic home bills. My kids and I are on NJ Family Care (state health insurance) as we all lost health insurance when he passed. I live a simple life; kind of paycheck to paycheck, with zero debt.

-I am being guided by God to surrender and ask for help, something that makes me feel completely uncomfortable and truly vulnerable.

-I am asked to surrender my humiliation and fears and lay bare my 
monetary needs.

-In so doing, I’m learning that being part of a community means that I have a place to go and ask for help.

-If you are feeling guided to make any donation no matter how large or small, please know that I am deeply grateful to you.

-And if you could share this with friends and pass it along it would be most appreciated.

Blessings be upon you.

If you’d like to know more about Cindy...

-When I was about 6 years old, I wanted to know why we didn’t see Dad anymore. Instead of Mom telling us they divorced, she told us, “He went on vacation and isn’t coming back.” In truth, he abandoned us for many years.

-In a flash, life for my two brothers and I went from okay to not okay.
We would all come to know hunger, malnutrition, depression/anxiety, alcoholism and lack.

-It’s during this time that I came to connect money to security. Money meant paid bills, food and clothes.

-It was also the beginning years of “unlearning” that I had any value as a human being.

-We had no religion, no spiritual belief systems and school was the only place we ate on a regular basis.

-Mom eventually landed a good job and learned to control her drinking just enough to pay bills, and bring food into the house.

-I followed Mom’s path of alcoholism. My 22 year drinking career started at age 11. I dropped out of school and years later found my dream job as a Bartender. The only job I ever trained for. I figured “if you can’t beat um-then-join-um.”

-It was only through God’s grace, and intervention that I found my way into Alcoholics Anonymous at 32, to start a whole new life.

-AA gave me my first introduction to a higher power, and wonderful experiences of belonging to a community.

-About two years into recovery, my husband and I decided to have our two children. My Mom died when I was pregnant with my first, and my Dad had died 13 years earlier. It’s important to note that, to me he was in the ground, dead. With Mom, she told me to remember her with sunsets, oceans and mountains but I still did not have any spiritual beliefs supporting new relationships with them yet after their deaths.

-A few years later, God really started to guide me into unknown and unfamiliar territory in helping me create a new occupation that helped me to help others - an ever-growing passion of mine.

-I’m guided into my new path and became a Reiki Master followed by a 3-year professional training to become a Body Psychotherapist. I worked from home so I could care for my children. I still do. (www.TotalClarityCounseling.com)

-Through the trauma of being scammed, I now realize that God wants me to recognize my own value through the impact I’ve had on others.

-I’ve been called to surrender my old childhood belief of money being my only security and see that over the years, I have replaced that with my devotion to God. And with God, I am being challenged to sweep clean and build anew, allowing this humiliating wound to become sacred and sanctifying.

-I can see now that it was no coincidence that the Divine Presence guided me to attend a four-day retreat with Celebrating Life Ministries (CLM) (https://www.celebratinglifeministries.com) in November 2015. 
In joining this community I can grow, and feel safe in openly falling apart. In falling apart, I truly see how much God loves me as a cherished child.

-I was greatly challenged in how to write about myself to let you know me even more than I’ve just explained. I thought the following story from nineteen years ago would be helpful.

Cindy Shares

Many years ago in an AA meeting a young man named Steve shared about his wife Sally having stage-2 breast cancer. (I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy) I felt compelled to offer Reiki which is very outside usual AA experiences of how we support one another in meetings.

I told him not worry about not knowing what Reiki was and to ask his wife if she was interested, we swapped phone numbers.

To his surprise Sally had heard of Reiki since being diagnosed and was 
interested. When I didn’t get a call after few days I felt the urge to call her. She was overjoyed to hear from me because she was unable to make the first move herself.

Over the next 3-6months we had about 30 Reiki sessions. First, it was on sliding scale, half my usual fee, then half again, then no fee at all. It was clear Sally needed the help I could provide and I was guided to give all I could. It never crossed my mind that our ethnic/race differences of me being white and her being black would be of any significance in our 
relationship.

It became very apparent that Sally needed much more help with home/family matters when her diagnosis went from stage-2, to stage-4 in a matter of a few weeks with the cancer now in her liver.

I realized what added help she could use when Sally finally admitted that she couldn’t go to the hospital and leave her home, two daughters, ages 11 & 13 with such a terrible mess.

The magnitude of her shame because of the condition of her house weighed heavily on her so I decided to make an offer and said, “How about you go into the hospital, and I’ll ask your husband to take the girls out for the day. I’ll gather some friends and clean your house while you're in the hospital. She was deeply touched by this, graciously agreed and hoped her husband would too.

I gathered up a few friends, got our supplies, but the night before Steve said no. Since I knew him from our AA meetings I felt okay challenging him a little but there was another component that he implied indirectly that this was also about a white woman coming in to clean a black man's home.

One of my friend volunteers was a black woman; Ronnie so I called her and asked to help intervene. She and I made our case that this was all for Sally. He reluctantly agreed.

The house was not functional, not a hoarders situation, just a total mess. A mess that was familiar to me, the words that came to mind  were...depression/alcoholism lives here. We decided to put our focus on getting the kitchen completely usable, clean the bathroom, and give some extra love to the girls room. I was part of the kitchen team and since no one else wanted to do the bathroom I took that as well. While cleaning the bathroom my friend Ronnie came to check on me and was moved by what she saw. “Wow, she said, "Never in my life did I ever think I would see a white woman cleaning a black woman’s toilet.

At the time it really didn’t make any difference to me. “Big deal, a toilet is a toilet.” We needed additional help and I had to call Steve’s AA sponsor to come haul all the garbage bags away for us. By the end of the day our mission was successful.

That night I went to hospital to Reiki Sally, while I was giving her a session she fell asleep. Her phone rang and I answered it in a low whisper voice.... And with that I was given the most beautiful gift by God that filled my heart with Joy....as I heard Sally’s younger daughter excitedly yell into the phone “Mommy the house is SO BEAUTIFUL!!!” To this day, any retelling of that moment brings tears into my eyes to hear how that mission touched her daughters heart.

Soon afterward the hospital restricted visitors to immediate family only and I thought, “Why should I be the one to say I don’t belong there?” I decided to put it on the hospital staff to challenge whether or not a white woman was her sister. Sally totally got a kick out of that! And was comforted to know I was in this all the way with her.

On one visit after I left Sally’s room, I saw a hospital worker I knew from AA. I had sponsored her for two years and we had lost touch after she entered into an abusive relationship. Although she hadn’t started using, she had stopped going to meetings. I was stunned at the significance of the moment knowing full well that I don’t like hospitals, avoid them at all cost, and wasn’t even supposed to be IN Sally’s room anymore. I said, “Boy does God love you! Oh wow! Do you have any idea how much God loves you that I would be standing here right now?” She was clearly moved at how God was answering her prayers.

We stayed in touch until she got back into meetings, was comfortable with a new sponsor, and left the abusive relationship.

Years later, a dear friend of mine in AA asked me if I ever heard her in speaker role at an AA meeting and shared her full story? I said no. He said, “Cindy, you are a profound part of her whole recovery story and it touched me while listening to her share how significant you have been to her.”

This touched my heart and made me feel valued. I still did not recognize how much God loved me as well.

Before I met Sally, my neighbor invited me to join in the upcoming Avon Breast Cancer walk in New York, raise money for the cause, and walk 60 miles in 3-days.

When Sally and I started working together she was deeply moved when I told her that I wanted to dedicate my walk to her.

The walk went off for a full day in torrential rain and wind. We did one day/20 miles and they needed to cancel the event.

For some reason I really couldn’t let it go and asked my husband to help me create a 20 mile route in our neighborhood that combined public rest stops and people’s homes to use as pit stops every about every 3 miles. I was determined to try this again and walk 60 miles in 3-days, using the same 20 mile route each day, to fulfill my heart’s desire to walk for Sally.

It was a little community effort. My husband had to watch the kids for three days and take one day off work. Some people left snacks/water/ fun notes on their porches, some surprised us along the route to offer cheers of support. Different friends joined with parts they were comfortable walking so that I was never alone on the walk for the whole 3-days.

During a pit stop at a local restaurant, on my third day, a young girl saw the picture around my neck ( I also had a fannie pack/breast cancer shirt). She gasped when she saw the photo and said, “That my friend’s Mom.” She seemed genuinely touched to see that I truly cared about Sally enough that I would walk 60 miles in 3 days for her.

Sally did pass and that meant going to a funeral. This was going to be a most challenging part for me since the only funeral I had ever gone to was my Dad’s and that was a horrible experience. I definitely didn’t want to view his body so I didn’t. To me Dad was dead and buried and that was that. Gone and in the ground.

My friend Ronnie wanted to go and that brought me comfort. I told her I didn’t want to view her body and thought I got my wish when we went to the viewing. Turns out the casket was open at the funeral. I had no choice now and had to walk up to the casket before taking my seat.

Immediately upon looking at Sally (the only dead body I had ever seen), I gasped and said in a whispered voice, “Wow...she’s not here.” I stood there for moment looking at her, as this realization sinks in.

I start to feel her in my heart and for the first time I’m aware that there is a heaven, or some universal place peoples’ souls go. When I got to my seat tears filled my eyes as I said to myself, “Dad, OMG. Dad’s in my heart and the universe too.” What a gift to have my father in that way. Then my Mom. Sally’s passing giving me the spirits of my parents was a profound moment for me.
We may never know the profound effects we have on others, or truly know that we have value.

-It seems like God wanted me to meet my pain head-on, and trust that She picked all of you to be my witnesses.

I hope everyone who has read this feels the profound impact you have made in my life and the Divine Love being received by your beautiful heart.

Love and Blessings,
Cindy