My Delacia, my love

My daughter passed away on Monday, December 21, 2009 of an unforeseen illness, she was 14 years old. She went to the ER on Sunday night, midnight and passed away at approximately 10 am on Monday. There was an autopsy, Kaiser was unable to determine her cause of death. They did rule out flu and H1N1.

I am a teacher and make a reasonable income, however, I feel blessed that I had a $10,000 child rider on my life insurance to assist with expenses. I am a single parent with limited savings. I still have college debt and raising a child that went to Catholic School, played sports and had music lessons was a financial juggle. Not to mention the mortgage.

The overall expenses for her funeral service, cemetery and burial service was more than $12,000. This is even after the Oakland Diocese of the Catholic Church granted my daughter approximately $3500 in fee reductions to services as a gift. I also chose a double plot and that increased the fee by an additional $8,000. These costs were only the beginning and did not include programs, ties for palbearers, flowers, clothing...

If I did not have the insurance policy the Mortuary would not have moved her immediately from the Coroner. The policy was accepted in "Good Faith" and I was given additional time to gather my funds to complete the arrangements. Thank God for my family. My daughter's burial would have been postponed till after the first of the year. She was buried last Wednesday.

Now I am faced with the fact that I can't work at this time. Mentally I am not in a place to care for other children. Remember, I am a teacher. I am taking time off and now there are my own medical costs and other additional expenses that have arisen. Please get insurance for yourself and all loved ones. Those insurance papers were like a mountain of gold that moved my baby from Santa Clara Coroners to Holy Angels Chapel.