Hi, It´s Claire in currently very wet Honduras. I just want to tell you all how glad I am you are doing this fund raiser. As some of you know, I´m reliving old times with Linda and Don´s experience and I remember that the Dukum fundraiser for Jim helped us out enormously. We were battling the insurance company for money to pay for rehab., but when that finally came through (All Hail our lawyer, Howard Hickman) I used the money to take care of Jim at home for nearly 3 years. Insurance companies never pay much for in home care, and the co-pays for everything else are another gut punch. They´re gonna need the money.
Although we finally got help through RAIL, (Rural Advocates for Independant Living,) the wages it was able to pay weren´t nearly what our caretakers deserved, and the donations provided them a little more bread and dignity. People at Truman and Kirksville town were incredibly generous to us and I´ll never forget the woman I barely knew who handed me a $100 bill in the Walmart parking lot, or Norby at Tutor´s Deli who fed my kids free for 2 years, or my Truman friends who took over my classes. Those samples of Kirksville kindness changed me forever, and even when things were most difficult I felt I was cradled in love and as Camus says in the Myth of Sisyphus(which is, by the way, the closest description to Linda and Don´s situation,) I was able to conclude that all was well. I miss you all. Claire