Now that the airfare and much of the funeral costs have been covered, I want to share more of the story. Didnt earlier cause did not want to guilt people into donating. Now I am trying to guilt people into prayer, that seems more acceptable. Also to promote medical marijuana, at least for children.
Jodi (mama) is an incredibly artistic person. We met when I had a retail store. First she and my wife became friends. Wife was pregnant with our first and Jodi had already given birth, so had lots of advice. Like most extremely artistic people, she seemed eccentric. Not nuts or anything, just pleasantly off. We hired her to do some sculptures for the store. They were amazing.
After we had our second child and moved to Kentucky, tragedy hit her family. Her 12 year old son Noah was accidentally shot and killed by a friend. As any mother would, she lost her mind. That summer, we made our home available to her very young children: Loki an Beezee. I dont remember exactly how long they stayed, but it was a bit. During their stay, I had my first bout with sepsis. When I got back from the hospital, both the kids threw their arms around me and expressed as much love and concern as my own kids.
I don't think you can ever get over the loss of a child, but a few years later I thought she'd be OK. She had remarried and was pregnant. They knew her new son Oskar would have birth defects, but I don't think anyone understood just how much dependent Oskar would be. Under that and other weight, her husband / his father took his own life. I know mental illness is a serious matter, but all I could think of was that bastard left her alone with so much weight on herself. She coped and coped well.
Doctors gave Oskar less than a year to live due to near constant seizures. She did research and found that the seizures could be wildly decreased with something that comes from marijuana. Although you could get it anywhere, only in legal states can you get the face to face medical advice from real doctors. So she sold everything she had and moved to Colorado. With what ever that is in marijuana that decreases seizures, Oskar would live for years rather than months. She set about squeezing a lifetime of experiences into what ever time he had left. Oskar was born blind. His one eye would track noise, but doctors were fairly sure it was just reflex. So Jodi focused on music, sound and motion. The smile on his face and giggle on his lips when she rocked him quickly was pure joy.
Not long ago, tragedy struck her again. She stopped here with her three children (Oskar, Beezee, and Loki) on her way to Ohio to visit with her adult children. It was October and they had a tradition of celebrating Halloween together. Shortly after leaving here, she collapsed. Her adult children rushed her to the hospital where they diagnosed horrific cancer in her abdomen. She decided since treatment would be ongoing, she should return to Colorado before beginning. On her way, she dropped off Beezee and Loki so they would not witness what treatment does to a person. We would have taken Oskar but had very serious reservations about our ability to properly care for him. That and his prescriptions were running out. Kentucky has actually passed laws allowing children to be treated with marijuana extracts, but there is no infrastructure to purchase it and no doctors skilled in prescribing it.
Back in Colorado, she lit up the PET scan. It is all over, spread threw the lymph nodes. They wanted to immediately remove so much of her abdominal that she would have a colostrum bag. But they warned that it was life extending, not saving and that in her state she might survive the operation. Instead, she decided to redouble her efforts to squeeze even more life into Oskar's life. The universe had other plans.
On December 26th, Oskar took his last breath and died in his mothers arms. With the marijuana laws in Colorado, she gave that sweet little boy four extra years of life. Your donations made it possible for her children ( all four ) to make it to Colorado for the funeral and in part fund the funeral. We drove the kids to Ohio where the adult kids took over and got everyone to Colorado for the funeral. But more importantly, they got all of her remaining kids to her side. I do not think she would have survived this without her kids being there. Since the adults both have jobs in Ohio, I imagine they wont be able to stay more than a couple weeks. Kind of hoping they bring her back so she has the support structure as she learns to cope with all of this. She is the strongest human being I have ever met.
Many, many thanks.
