HELP US BUILD A LIFE BEYOND SURVIVAL & MAKE AS MANY MEMORIES AS WE CAN ❤️

Getting back on the road, back to family, and building a future while making the time we have together count.

A quick note about our privacy: Because our family is rebuilding after a domestic violence situation, I am intentionally keeping our names, exact location, photographs, and certain identifying details private. The fundraising platform will receive whatever identifying information it requires from me privately. Protecting my children, my dad, and myself has to come first. I hope you'll understand why some details aren't being shared publicly.

The Short Version

🚙 Reliable Transportation: Finding a safe, dependable family vehicle so I can finally retire from being the family mechanic—and so Dad, the kids, and I can reliably get where we need to go.

❤️ More Memories & Good Days: Giving Dad, my kids, and our family the opportunity to actually go places, see the people we love, and make as many memories together as we can.

🏡 Getting Back Home: Eventually relocating our family back to our home state, where our support system is, so we're no longer trying to do everything alone.

💻 Building Stable Income: Creating sustainable income I can earn from home so I can continue caring for Dad while rebuilding financial stability and creating a future for my children and myself.

We survived. Now I'm trying to figure out how we actually live again.

I'm a widow, a mom, and the primary caregiver for my elderly father, who is living with dementia.

Somewhere along the way, life stopped giving us time to recover from one thing before the next thing showed up.

Between loss, serious illness, addiction, anxiety, depression, absolute chaos, multiple hospitalizations and ER visits, caring for Dad as his dementia continued to progress, raising my kids, learning that one of my children had been violated at school, and living through a domestic violence situation, I spent years trying to put out one fire while another one was already starting.

And eventually, I couldn't keep doing it.

I didn't gracefully power through everything and somehow have all the answers.

The truth is, after years of trauma and constantly operating in survival mode, I completely broke down—physically and emotionally.

For a period of time, I wasn't figuring anything out.

I was barely functioning and genuinely struggling to find my way back to myself.

That's part of this story too.

Because rebuilding didn't start when everything went wrong.

Rebuilding started when I finally began getting back up.

And that's where I am now.

I'm still figuring things out.

I'm still cleaning up the aftermath.

I'm still learning how to ask for help instead of believing I have to carry absolutely everything myself.

I don't have everything fixed.

But I'm finally moving forward.

For the first time in a long time, I'm not just trying to survive whatever happens next.

I'm trying to build what comes next.

I haven't done all of this completely alone.

I don't want to tell this story as if I've carried every single bit of it by myself, because that wouldn't be true.

I've had a few really good friends who have shown up for me in ways I will probably never be able to fully repay.

They've listened when I needed to fall apart.

They've helped when I couldn't figure out what to do next.

They've reminded me who I was when I couldn't see it myself.

They've stepped in during some of the moments when everything felt impossible.

Honestly, I don't know if I would have made it through some of this without them.

I'm incredibly grateful for that, and I never want asking for help publicly to erase the help I've already received privately.

But there's one thing love, friendship, and emotional support can't magically fix:

Financially, I am in a hole so deep right now that I genuinely don't know how to climb out of it by myself.

That's probably one of the hardest things in this entire story for me to admit.

I've spent so long solving whatever problem was directly in front of me that there was never enough time—or money—to recover from the one before it.

One emergency gets handled.

Another bill gets pushed back.

The car breaks, so that has to come first.

Someone needs something, so you figure it out.

Another crisis happens, and whatever tiny bit of progress you made disappears.

Do that long enough and eventually you look around and realize:

You aren't just behind anymore. You're buried.

That's where I am financially.

I'm not saying that because I've given up.

I'm saying it because I'm finally being honest about where I'm starting from.

I can't budget my way out of money that simply isn't there.

I can't keep repairing everything myself and expect that to somehow create long-term stability.

And I can't keep pretending that if I work harder, sleep less, stretch another dollar, or solve one more emergency, eventually everything will magically catch up.

It hasn't.

I need help getting enough solid ground underneath us that all the work I'm doing to rebuild actually has a chance to matter.

But I have a plan beyond asking for help.

I'm not sitting here waiting for a fundraiser to magically fix everything.

I'm actively working toward creating a stable income I can earn from home while still caring for Dad and raising my kids.

Right now, Dad needs me.

Being his caregiver is something I want to be able to continue doing.

But I also have to think about the future—even the part of the future I really don't like thinking about.

Dad won't be here forever.

Hopefully that day is still a long, long way away.

But when it eventually comes, I don't want to suddenly look around after losing my dad and realize that the life I built entirely around caring for everyone else disappeared with him.

I need somewhere to land too.

That's another reason getting back to our home state and building sustainable work from home matter so much to me.

I want to keep caring for Dad while he needs me.

I want to give him good days and time with the people he loves.

But at the same time, I need to start building stable income, rebuilding financially, and creating a support system and a future that will still be there for my children and me someday when my role as Dad's caregiver comes to an end.

I'm not trying to choose between taking care of my dad and building my own future. I'm trying to find a way to do both.

The goal isn't to live off help.

The goal is to use this help to build something sustainable—so I can be here for Dad now without leaving myself with nowhere to land later.

🚙 I would REALLY like to retire from being the family mechanic.

When you're caring for children and an elderly parent with dementia, reliable transportation isn't a luxury.

It's appointments.

Groceries.

School.

Emergencies.

Family.

And everyday life.

I'm not looking for anything fancy.

I need something safe, dependable, and large enough for my family.

At this point I've learned WAY more about cars than I ever wanted to know. 😂

I've replaced radiators, sensors, spark plugs, and whatever else Google, YouTube, and pure desperation told me needed fixing.

I'm pretty resourceful.

But I am REALLY ready to retire from being the family mechanic.

Recently, a combination of circumstances—including transportation problems and the financial strain of trying to keep everything together—resulted in me missing the baby shower for my newest grandchild.

I arrived as everyone was leaving.

That's a moment I can never get back.

And it hit me harder than I expected.

Because after everything we've already lost and missed over the years, I don't want unreliable transportation, distance, and financial chaos deciding which family memories I get to be part of.

I don't need a fancy vehicle.

I need something I can put my family in, turn the key, and trust that it's going to get us where we're going.

❤️ Dad deserves more than doctor's appointments.

Dad has worked his ass off his entire life.

He spent his career as an architect literally helping build things for other people.

He's elderly now.

He has dementia.

And dammit, I want the man to have some fun.

I know I can't stop what dementia may eventually take from him.

But while he can still laugh with us, enjoy things, see his family, and make memories, I want to give him as many good days as I possibly can.

I want to load everybody into the car and go somewhere just because we can.

Visit family.

Take little road trips.

See something beautiful.

Eat somewhere new.

Take ridiculous family pictures.

Laugh.

Let him spend time with his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

My goal isn't to give Dad some extravagant bucket-list lifestyle.

I just don't want money, transportation, and circumstances to decide that his world has to keep getting smaller.

Dementia is going to take enough.

I don't want an unreliable car, distance, and financial hardship taking away the ordinary good days we can still have together.

I want to make as many memories as we can while we still can.

🏡 Our next chapter is getting back home.

Our bigger goal is to relocate back to our home state, where our family and support system are.

We aren't running away. We're moving toward support.

We're moving toward our people.

Our family is there, and our family is growing again.

Missing my newest grandchild's baby shower—and arriving just as everyone was leaving—was a painful reminder of exactly why being so far away isn't working for us anymore.

I don't want to keep watching family milestones through pictures and videos because something went wrong with the car, money got tight, or life threw another curveball.

I want us there.

I want my children surrounded by family.

I want Dad surrounded by people who love him.

I want him to have time with his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren while he still can.

I want my newest grandbaby to actually know us—not just recognize us from a phone screen.

And if I'm being completely real, I want something for myself too.

I want somebody close enough to occasionally say:

"I've got this one. You go handle the other thing."

Because I've spent years being Mom, caregiver, driver, mechanic, advocate, appointment keeper, bill-payer, problem-solver, and the person everybody looks at when something goes wrong.

I've finally learned something:

Doing absolutely everything yourself isn't a requirement for being strong.

I already proved I can survive without enough help.

I don't want to spend the next chapter proving it again.

Getting back to our home state isn't some random move or a fresh-start fantasy.

It's part of how I make our life sustainable.

It's getting closer to people who can actually show up.

It's giving my kids more family.

It's giving Dad more time with the people who love him.

It's giving me the support I need to work consistently and rebuild financially.

And it's giving me a chance to stop carrying every single piece of our life completely by myself.

I'm not asking anyone to rescue us.

We already survived the part I wasn't sure we'd survive.

Not perfectly.

There were times I absolutely fell apart.

There were times I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

There were times when surviving was literally all I had in me.

But we're here.

And now I'm getting back up.

I'm figuring things out.

I'm rebuilding.

Trust me, if stubbornness alone could buy a dependable SUV, dig me out financially, build a work-from-home career, and move an entire family back home, this fundraiser wouldn't exist. 😂

Unfortunately, apparently that's not how banking works.

So I'm doing something I'm really not good at:

I'm asking for help.

Not for someone to fix my life.

Not for someone to rescue us.

Just for enough of a boost to get some solid ground underneath our feet while I do the rest.

Maybe you can donate $5.

Maybe it's $20.

Maybe it's more.

Maybe someone reading this has a dependable vehicle they no longer need or knows someone willing to sell one affordably.

Maybe you know about a legitimate work-from-home opportunity that could fit around my caregiving responsibilities.

Maybe you know about a vehicle-assistance program, dementia-caregiver resource, relocation program, nonprofit, organization, or another resource I haven't found yet.

And maybe you can't give anything financially.

Please share our story anyway.

The right share could put this in front of someone who has exactly the resource, connection, vehicle, job opportunity, or answer we've been looking for.

We have spent enough time surviving.

I want my children to feel secure.

I want a dependable car outside.

I want stable income.

I want family close enough to help.

I want to be there for the next family milestone instead of arriving when it's over.

I want Dad to enjoy the life he worked so hard for.

I want him to see things.

Go places.

Laugh.

Make memories.

Live.

I want to care for my dad now and build a future for the day when he no longer needs me.

I want to get us back home—to the people who love us and the support system we've been trying to live without for far too long.

For the first time in a long time, I'm not pretending I've already figured everything out.

I haven't.

I'm figuring it out now.

I'm rebuilding now.

And for the first time in a long time, I'm not only looking backward at everything we've survived.

I'm looking forward at what we can build—and all the memories we can still make along the way.

I don't need someone to save me.

I survived.

What I need now is a little help getting enough solid ground underneath our feet so I can do the rest.

Help Us Build a Life Beyond Survival & Make as Many Memories as We Can ❤️

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long story, for sharing it, for helping if you can, and honestly, just for rooting for us.

We're still here.

I'm getting back up.

And I'm not done yet. ❤️

— L. & Family