Hello to you fine person who has blessed me with your time and attention to my story. I am truly grateful for everything and every person in my life. I practice gratitude, and I've never taken a single kindness for granted, so please understand how much I truly appreciate you reading my story.

However, this is the shortened version of my story, so I'll get to the point. My mom, now in her 70s, has metastatic breast cancer stage four. There's no cure. I want to give her some happy memories, because all she does is go to the doctor, the dog park, and watch TV.

Thank you so much. You can stop reading here if you'd like. Here's more of the story for context, if you're interested...

My family was always just my Mom, younger brother, and me. My dad wasn't in the picture, and neither was a stepdad for more than a couple years.

I was I guess you'd say, born into poverty, because my mom was 18 when she had me, and this being prior to 1970, she had to drop out of high school. We lost my brother last December 19th.

I'm a big believer in accepting responsibility for one's situations. I've made some bad decisions, which have contributed to my continued poverty. Those decisions had nothing to do with drinking or drugs, which thankfully I've never done. Let's just say my ex husband lives comfortably in Hawaii now, while I didn't ask for my share of our CA condo decades earlier, and I gave up my portion of his pension. Now, though I've worked consistently since I was 15, I struggle to make rent in my mobile home park.

I'll stop here, dear reader. I'll tell you more of you'd like the long story. Either way, thank you so much for your kind consideration. God bless you.

Laurel