This is day #3 of a fundraiser for Bobby, who you all know as newpioneer, who joined the club commonmass and I belong to last month when he published this diary.
As Sara R reminds us
There are a lot of things to take care of after a death -- and Bobby has no income. There is the possibility of a job in ten weeks -- but nothing until then. He's selling or placing all the animals that he and Juan loved so much. He will probably sell their home and their land. But this will take some time.
Youffraita also tells us
My dear friend and fellow kossack newpioneer is facing a very difficult time. He has sold the beautiful lop-eared goats he loved, and is doing whatever is needed to try to hang onto his farm until he begins his new job as a sushi chef: but that won't happen for ten weeks.
His neighbor and good friend has been buying the dog food.
This situation is unsustainable. newpioneer isn't asking for more: I am asking on his behalf.
He closed his restaurant b/c he couldn't afford to keep it open AND pay for his love's home care at the same time. He took the risk, just so he could attend to Juan for the last year as the cancer consumed him.
Now, newp is left with little, except the job that begins in ten weeks, a few dogs, and a farm he is desperately trying to save until he once again has an income.
Will you help? Please?
I have known him for years, and newp is one of the good guys.
Obviously, there is a need. But what neither Sara R nor Youffraita can tell you right now is what Bobby is feeling now, three weeks in. That's what we can do.
I suppose I'm happy that I diaried my own bereavement so thoroughly for you, because I have one from two weeks and one from four weeks after Jim died. From the two week diary:
Okay. I was having a bad enough day already, with the bank having informed me yesterday about where to send the death certificates (because when you let Social Security know they should stop a direct transfer they tell everyone connected with it, including your bank). My branch doesn't know yet, or at least they're not saying anything at the teller window.
Then, I got a phone call. I can't imagine what it must be like for the people at the mortuary to have to make these phone calls, but yes, Jim was cremated today (41 years and 5 months to the day), and now I know. The death certificate was registered on the 17th, and they'll Fed Ex it and the copies I need to me when they get them. Another week. A friend will pick me up on Friday morning and we'll go over and pick up the urn and probably have lunch and I'll probably drink but life will go on.
That's me, still numb. It was bad enough that I had to figure out when I could go get the urn. I can't IMAGINE having had to make serious business decisions like the one
newpioneer is making right now in the condition I was in then.
And after four weeks, and a rash of meta stuff about TTFNs that sometimes happens here:
More notes for what you should do when you lose someone you've lived with for 2/3 of your life. I wasn't sure what to make of the latest meta issues here, but I made an effort to figure it out, because without Daily Kos this past month would have been a LOT worse. Why today? I've had an increasingly difficult time finding things I want to read here, and when I read Cheers and Jeers and decided not to comment because I couldn't find anything that warranted cheers -- yep, this is the depression they talk about.
I'm functioning. I'm getting the laundry done, I'm cooking (I made a beef stew with leeks for the week yesterday morning), I'm running the usual errands, but when I tell a friend at lunch yesterday that I did something because I have to remind myself to leave the house every so often, that says depression.
And more Kos! Saturday the LA Kossacks, the following weekend the SF Kossacks, one of whom is welcoming me into his home for three nights. I'm still enough the same me that these will work the way they did in October and November. No, I'm not as fragile as some of this makes me sound. Really!
I was so lucky to have this kind of support. Of course I was that fragile, and I think you all knew that but you were really nice about it. I honestly don't know what I would have done and how I would have coped without this wonderful Kossack family close at hand. This is as close as we can get physically to
newpioneer and I hope, if you're reading this, you're feeling the love and concern we have for you.
From commonmass:.
Dave is right: he and I and newpioneer belong to the same club, and it's a club that I would not join willingly. It is also a club that can throw folks into financial ruin, not to mention emotional doldrums.
My late husband had certain health issues--none of which, by the way, had much to do with his death--but was healthy as a horse up until just a couple of months before he died. All of a sudden it was trips to the ER, and worsening symptoms--psychological ones included. It started around Thanksgiving, and by early February, I was standing up in front of about 200 mourners at St. Luke's Cathedral and eulogizing him. Had it not been for a couple of "nerve pills" I probably couldn't have done it and as a result, the entire day is a little hazy. But things are getting better. Slowly, but very much surely.
The help and support that I received from this community I will always be grateful for. We are a kind of microcosm of the Democratic Party here: we put our money where our mouth is and reach out to help a sister or brother in need. These are Democratic values, they are the values of Secular Humanists, they are the values of the People(s) of the Book(s), they are the values I cherish as a Freemason.
Not a single day goes by that I don't miss Terun. Sitting here, at The Rock, and looking out at the memorial garden (which is about to be enlarged, thanks to some Kossacks!), I feel him very close. He loved this place, and part of him will be here forever.
Not a single day goes by when I also realize that I have to deal with Terun's property, which is in foreclosure exacerbated by the fact that he died intestate. Real life issues survive the deaths of our loved ones.
Let's help our friend newpioneer in his grief, and make sure that the last thing he has to think about is money. I remember what early grief felt like. Let us embrace him with our arms, and with our love, and help him to get on his feet.
To newpioneer I say "love and community will see you through".
I wish you weren't in this club with us, but we are here to help you get through it.
Dave in Northridge again: Yes, I can attest to what commonmass said, because I was there to counsel and to comfort him, which is what I did, some nights for three hours at a time. I now have the brother I never had growing up as an only child.
He's right about what he said about the values of this community we belong to as well. And it's to this warm and generous community who supplied us with the quilts we value so much that we're appealing to tonight. Here's a link to paypal for those of you who have accounts:
PayPal can be sent to Bobby and Juan's joint account at nuevopionero AT gmail DOT com (replace AT with @ and DOT with a . )
And here is
a GoFundMe link for those of you who don't use PayPal.
And I can't do better than Sara R's conclusion, either:
Lets put our arms around our friend. He's going through one of the hardest times of his life and he needs us, his friends.