Saturday, November 24, 2012

In Honor of the New Joyce::In Fond Memory of Billy

I've written a few posts about my friend Joyce and her husband Billy. Billy died on the morning of November 13, 2012.  Unable to afford a funeral, he signed papers to donate his body to science and that broke a few hearts. There are plans for a memorial service in early January and I hope that will be a balm.

Due to red tape gobbledy-guck, Joyce's disability check will be cut to $80 for the month of December, returning to its usual robust, over-the-top $600 in January.

Please, if you can, help her get through this month by donating to Billy's Fund, which is now a Memorial Fund.  Joyce is raising Shawna, who is in high school (and we all know HSchoolers need food, shelter, and other mysterious stuffs!).  Christmas, which is going to be hard enough, could be made a little easier with small gifts.

Go HERE to donate.

Thank you for reading and responding to these calls and reminders of need -- I know need is everywhere, and that we all give in one way or another.  And yes, I'm daring to ask for more... because you don't know what a miracle it is that Joyce has spoken up at all.  I want her to keep speaking up, and to discover that there are people to talk to, to work with, and who care.

She can be wickedly stubborn in seeing the world as a cruel place, and has a past that can bolster that point of view, if she lets it.  But over the past few years, even as her own health got worse, she started to reclaim life and its pleasures.

It is my greed, then, that asks you to donate -- I dread that former Joyce, so sure of a world that thought nothing of her, and long to keep and strengthen this woman who is learning that she can be happy, that she can do most anything!

But underneath all those fine words is the realtiy that $80 won't get them from December 1, 2012 to January 1, 2013.

shawna,   billy,   joyce

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