From Gofundme, Daisy Leonard issued this heartbreaking appeal for help for her mother.
“She really needs help and I do what I can for her, but financially I’m not capable of helping her as much as I would like,” Leonard states. “I know most people will think this is a scam and things like this, but I promise I would not be doing this if we really didn’t need the help. So please, please, please help us if you can. Anything is better then nothing. If my mom gets kicked out of her house, she will literally have nowhere to go.”
Leonard was being genuine about her mother’s distress.
“We’ve had a lot of loss,” she said.
Amanda Bryant’s life took its hard turn when her husband died at age 56 from a massive heart attack in February. He didn’t have insurance so Leonard used a Gofundme account to afford having him cremated.
Ironically, Amanda herself wasn’t expected to survive longer than him, even at age 43. She suffers from Lupus, an autoimmune disease that has severely debilitated her and left her vulnerable to illness, and leaves unable to do her own shopping.
“I do everything for her,” Leonard said. “Everything.”
Yet, Bryant’s passing, Amanda was left with barely $600 a month in Social Security, which she had to fight for when the agency maintained she’d been overpaid, and left her with little to survive. She lost her home, which required her and Leonard’s relocation to Hahnville four years ago.
Amanda recounted how she and her husband were always “the giver, not the taker,” but that has heartbreakingly changed.
“It’s just not cutting it anymore,” Leonard said. “She actually doesn’t eat unless I bring her food and sometimes she goes without eating.”
Amanda is charged $300 per month rent for the mobile home that was given to her by a family member, but it’s dilapidated.
“It’s not livable, but it was better than being on the street. She hasn’t had a stove since we moved here,” Leonard said. “She has a little hot plate – that’s what she cooks with. If someone with the parish saw it, they’d consider it condemned, but she has no where else to go.”
Amanda wept as she agreed with her daughter, particularly with black mold appearing on the ceilings and the front door falling apart.
“Everything’s falling apart with the mold and my illness,” she said. “I never dreamt I’d have to live this way.”
Her drugs are $3,000 a month and her share, even with Medicare, is $300 a month.
“I stay in pain, which is horrible,” said Amanda, who can’t afford the pain pump that’s been recommended by a doctor. “I hurt all the time.”
She also deals with fibromyalgia, which leaves her in widespread pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep and memory loss, and mood swings.
One morning, Amanda recalled not being able to get up, which also frightened her.
Even with Leonard’s help, her mother’s struggle has worsened.
She was about to be evicted from the lot where her trailer stands until the United Way of St. Charles helped with back rent. It also provided a $50 gift card for food.
“She had to sell my dad’s car, which broke her heart,” Leonard said. “But she needed the money. This means she doesn’t have a vehicle and she’s sick with a severe form of Lupus.”
Amanda hasn’t been able to part with her late husband’s two dogs, which the St. Charles Humane Society is helping with food. Leonard said she needs them for company and a reminder of her husband.
It also means she often cancels her doctor appointments, which her daughter said is dangerous with her suffering from kidney failure.
“Sometimes, it makes me feel useless because I can’t do for her what I want to do,” Leonard said. “I wish I could do more.”
But her mother feels very differently about her daughter, lovingly calling her “my angel” and “my baby.”
Leonard, who lives two streets away from her mother, pays to keep her mother’s phone on. She considers it important in case of an emergency and particularly as she often babysits her two-year-old son, Malaki.
“It’s emotionally stressful, but that’s my momma,” said a weeping daughter. “It’s my time to help. She’s my best friend.”
The mother’s Gofundme account is at https://www.gofundme.com/gyxzr-living-expenses.
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