Hello, friends and family. I hope you are doing well and feeling fine. I also hope that this message reaches you when your heart is feeling open, courageous, and strong.

Because we are struggling so hard right now. To tell the truth, we've been struggling for a long time, but not quite like this.

As some of you know, my mom, Laura Hardy, has been in a psychiatric hospital since this previous Tuesday, 4/11. Before that, she spent the weekend in the hospital hallucinating deeply. And before that, her coworkers had to get her to the emergency room because she was speaking nonsense and collapsed. The emergency room doctors couldn't wake her up, or keep her blood pressure down; at one point, it spiked to 270, and she still couldn't wake up. Thankfully, she is exactly where she needs to be now to get exactly the kinds of help and care she needs to stabilize and move forward; thankfully, she has insurance and her medical costs are covered. But while she is in the hospital, we're losing every day of her potential wages, and it isn't clear yet when she will be well enough to go back to work.

All our lives have often felt like a twisted rollercoaster, but this past week has been a special kind of nightmare for us. My mom worked so hard that her brain and body collapsed. My stepdad, Jim, has been working through hip pain, back pain, knee pain, and a hernia that the surgeons refuse to treat until he loses weight; and I'm sure you can appreciate how difficult it must be to lose weight while you're already fighting pain and constant economic stress.

Thankfully, I'm finally feeling strong enough to get back to work just as our lives seem on the brink of collapse. I am doing what I can to support my parents. They have been so, so good to me while I've been recovering from severe post-traumatic stress, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder, all from childhood trauma and repeated economic stress. And I have been putting in the work, the hours, and the energy towards lifting myself out of darkness.

And I am seeing the results. I am stronger than I ever thought I could be. But even as I start working for doordash and gopuff, we're looking at at least a month of not knowing if our electricity or phones might be cut off, or if we'll make rent on the first. We're not even thinking about next month yet.

And we're not asking for much. We just need enough to limp by. Anything, anything at all that you can donate is much appreciated and enormously helpful. We're doing our absolute best to be there for each other and to work hard, but we don't see how we can make it through this month without help.

$3000 will cover rent, the car payments, car insurance, our phone bill, and our wifi - all the very basic things we need to make sure we can keep working. But even a dollar or two here and there will help if we can just get enough people to pitch in.

So if you can't donate, please consider sharing our story on your favorite social media platforms, and we will be forever grateful. The more eyes on our story the more likely we are to each our goal.

Thank you so much for taking the time to hear us. Be well and stay safe.

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[UPDATE] In what has been a huge shock for the whole family, we surpassed our funding goal by over $2000! A huge thank you to everyone who participated, who donated and/or shared! A special thank you to all who reached out with kind words and virtual hugs. We deeply appreciate every bit of your kindness, care, and love. 🥰

Moving forward, this fundraiser will be kept open for those who have chosen to continue supporting us long term, and in case we need to ask for help again. We've been able to start thinking about the next month, thanks to our lovely contributors, and as Jim is a teacher and school will be let out for the summer, work for him will be scarce between June 1st and July 19th. That's seven whole weeks. He's got one week of work left, and I'm gonna start working my butt at my new job (I'm also running all the errands and doing the majority of the cleaning while working on my mental health), but it's gonna be a tough summer.

Once we get the second car fixed with these generous donations, focusing on work will become easier for me. Once the money from this fundraiser arrives in the bank, we'll be able to fully evaluate our needs moving forward. As mom was the main person in charge of the household bills, and her memory hasn't been so good these last couple of weeks, we're still playing a bit of catch up. But thanks to you all, we might finally get caught up.

Much love to you all. I'll post updates on how things are going once all the money has finally reached us.

Stay safe, and be well 🥰🖤💕🌟🌈🙏🏻