Support for Anna Mezias' Memorial Services

My name is Julia and I am the daughter of my loving mother Anna Mezias, who passed away Friday the 28th of June, 2024, due to complications from both pancreatic cancer and a major stroke. We were given the diagnosis too late for her to start chemotherapy even though we were told she had less than 3 months to live, at best. Unfortunately, my mother was a strong woman and suffered at home for months while being consistently misdiagnosed due to her broken English. However, once diagnosed and given a few months to live with the option of treatments, she was willing and hopeful to start chemotherapy, even if it was going to only prolong the inevitable. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to begin treatment because she suffered from a stroke on Monday the 24th of June, before she was scheduled to start her first round of chemotherapy. In an effort to save her life, her cousin gave permission for the doctor’s to intubate her, but the stroke was too much for her body to handle. She couldn’t breathe on her own anymore and although her heart was still beating, her body had began to give up on her once the brain was damaged. This resulted in a multi-system organ failure, aiding in her demise. As her next of kin and healthcare proxy, I made the decision to pull her off the breathing ventilator on Friday the 28th around 10pm and she took her last breath/heart beat around 11:30pm because the chances of her waking up were almost nonexistent and if she had woken up she wouldn’t have had been able to see or have any cognitive function. So if she had woken up, she would have woken up to suffer in pain until her heart stopped beating.

Sadly, my mom and I never got the chance to discuss what she would want for memorial services and I did not want to worry her during the last days in the hospital because I wanted her to use all her energy to focus on fighting/recovering from the infection the tumors had caused in her digestive tract that delayed the start of her chemotherapy.

This year was long and hard. I watched her suffer from sleep deprivation due to her enduring so much pain which lead to her crashing and totaling her car a day before her 54th birthday on May 29th, while still going to work full time, 5-6 days a week. During this time, my mom also couldn’t eat as much as she used to or keep in fluids because of misdiagnosis or the tumors not being caught in time to be treated.

My mom always put herself last, even at the cost of her own well-being, safety and health, due to being victimized by our abuser, for 23 years of her life. She tried to press charges a few times but the Revere and Lynn police departments, did nothing to help her escape or protect her from the abuse. Also, the commonwealth of Massachusetts consistently dismissed all the violent charges, releasing the monster from custody to continue abusing my mom both verbally, physically and sexually. In fact, the police not only didn’t do their job by protecting the innocent, they partook in allowing the abuse to continue throughout the years in different occasions by arresting the victims of the abuse, including myself. Fortunately, on June 6th of 2022, after years of playing the judicial system, she was granted a protective order against her abuser and was able to begin living as a free independent woman. However, her freedom was short lived and she didn’t leave much behind for her life’s savings was depleted by said person.

My mom immigrated here from Russia to follow the American dream and the systems put in place to protect victims and children, failed us. She did her best with what she had and I would like to do the same.

Which brings me here to start this fundraiser to help cover her services. Any and all donations will go directly to covering the costs of her ceremonies.

I thank everybody in advance for any and all types of support during this troubling and sad time.