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Remember and Celebrate our Mother Wendy Bridges

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Hi, our names are Rick, Amber, Angela, and Mark. We are Wendy’s (Pictured Center) surviving children and unfortunately, we’re coming here today on account of some rather unfortunate news, but in the hopes that we might get some help in celebrating the life of the wonderful person who was our Mom.

In the very early morning hours of July 15th, shortly after the clock struck 12, our Mother Wendy Lee Bridges unfortunately passed away. She had had a rough month or so in and out of the doctors for what was continually branded as a sinus infection or a cold. After developing a bit of a chronic cough, she began to experience some limited issues with her breathing. Those issues would turn out to be more serious, though this was missed by the doctors she saw. Shortly into the morning of July 15th she asked us to call an ambulance while experiencing severely labored breathing and while paramedics were initially optimistic, things changed quite considerably on our way into the hospital. By 2:30am or so on the Morning of the 15th, our mother had unexpectedly and quite suddenly died, a victim of a clot.

Please help us celebrate her life. We have never been a family of many means, and much of what we have we have only because our mother enabled us to search for ourselves and find our callings. In many ways we are still searching. This unexpected and tremendous loss has sadly caught us flat footed in a way we never thought something could and we need your help to ensure she has proper send off, and is remembered in an appropriate way.

Funds will be used to
• Pay for all expenses related to the funeral.
• Pay for any legal expenses incurred in handling her estate
• Securing the family home she worked so hard for for her children.
• Remainders (if any) will go towards settling the loans for her car and handling the mortgage payments and utilities until we are able to square it away, or other necessary homecare/repairs

And please take the time to read this very brief summary of our mothers’ life.

We know many of you who might be reading this post knew our mother in a myriad of different ways, but we would like you to get to know her a little more as we have growing up alongside her as our mother. We often like to think of her as a leader. She constantly led by example, living life in a way I can only describe her as a paragon of compassion, love, and tenderness. If unconditional love existed on earth, it was Wendy Bridges who embodied that. She wanted little more than to embrace and nurture everyone’s better angels and best tendencies. She could light a room up brighter than the sun and always managed to find the silver lining in every situation. She had confidence that situations would resolve themselves or otherwise they would be worked through to the most positive outcome. Her optimism could carry her and everyone around her through some of the darkest times they might experience. Even when there was gloom and doom she could find cause and time to soften the mood and place a laugh in such a way it could disarm and lighten even the darkest time. Always cracking jokes and always trying to, “Turn that frown upside down!”

Our mother was a product of many experiences, and many of you may know that her life was not easy. She struggled through some truly depressing situations as a child being separated from our Late Grandfather Donald Bridges and living in what I can only describe as abusive conditions until coming back into the care of our Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather and our Grandfather. She had her first child young at the age of 20 and worked tirelessly through school at Macomb Community College to receive an Associate’s Degree in Graphic Arts. A degree she would put to use in printing for a time before briefly owning a printing company named Aurora. Ladened with the company’s debt, she was forced into bankruptcy. For a time, we lived together with our Uncle Lloyd while she strove and struggled to get us back on our feet all while raising 4 children over the years. She endured harsh conditions, narrow criticisms, and pessimistic opinions of doubters over the years, set back after set back. Struggling with a bout of kidney cancer after having a heart attack at 37, one that as she claimed the doctors and paramedics said she only survived because she had hit the tile floor of the party store she was at so hard. In trying times like these she would often find comfort in "God's Plan" as she would say.

Eventually finding her way in the service industry and the role that many of you would come to recognize her in. She would find a home at Famous Dave’s in a way I certainly never expected. Falling into her perfect niche it seemed and finally working a long tiring and effort ladened path out of a period of terrible years and frustrating setbacks, over complicated schedules, all while supporting her family and trying to build up something as wonderful as she could. Even when the times were at their bleakest, through the thickest and thinnest of things in life, she still maintained an optimistic composure and never once giving into the darker sides of her own mental and emotional turmoil, a turmoil we ever rarely saw in her but came to understand in as we came into adulthood. There was never a moment you could not find her supporting her kids, even when it was well and clear we didn’t “need” it or when we really only barely deserved it if at all.

Some might see her achievements in life as small or insignificant, but we don’t. She only ever impressed us. She was, as the younger kids say these days, the GOAT(Greatest of All Time). A humble life suited her, though the security she only found recently would’ve and should’ve been much longer appreciated before being stolen away from her. I recall a small conversation I had with my mother as a young child; we were talking about “what you want to be when you grow up” and I have never forgotten her answer: “A Mother.” She had always wanted to be a mom. Someone who cared for people and nurtured them and raised them. No matter what went wrong she always always had that. I don’t think she was just our mother though; no, I think she managed to extend that out in the community around her in such away she left a deep and meaningful impact in the lives of everyone that she had the joy of briefly touching; molding us into better versions of ourselves.

She was hardworking, she was brave, she was smart, she was loving, she was compassionate, she was generous, she was the most forgiving, she was absolutely all the things that we all should be all the time. Sure, she had her issues—though she was to us—but the one thing she could never be said to be was selfish or irresponsible. She always had her priorities straight even when those closest to her may not have been able to see that. She also always pursued her dreams, even when those dreams seemed only scantly attainable, having purchased her first home at the age of 51, a home she dreamt would be a family home for her and her kids; it is a tremendous unfairness that she was only able to enjoy that satisfaction for 15 months…

Her loss is not just a tremendous loss to us, blindsiding us at a time where we all thought our lives were finally out of the dumpster fire and had recycled into something calmer, more peaceful, and significantly more stable. But we believe a loss for every one of us who has had the great blessing of having been a part of the fabric of her life. She found us all as threads and had an unimpeachable talent for weaving us into a greater tapestry holding us proudly in the light even when she had her darkest night.

Her greatest oversight was caring so much for everyone around her that she neglected herself.

She was a gift and we already desperately miss her. Though we needed and loved her, we are glad to have shared her with you

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We decided on a date : Thursday July 27th
Bagnasco & Calcaterra Funeral Home
25800 Harper Ave, St Clair Shores, MI 48081
starting at 2pm ending at 9pm with a service to be decided still somewhere in the middle hopefully.


Thank you again for all your support
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Organizer

Richard Bridges
Organizer
Roseville, MI

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