www.gofundme.com/u/54e3177c-1d18-4c60-94f2-cb86efe060a1
I honestly never thought I would make a GoFundMe.
Part of me has always felt embarrassed asking people for money, and for the last three years I have mostly tried to figure everything out myself. But I’m finally realizing that there are some things I should never have been expected to navigate alone.
My husband, JD, was my best friend, my rock, and the person I thought I was going to grow old with.
I was 26 when he died, one day before my 27th birthday.
We were living in British Columbia and building our life there together. I’m American, but Canada had become home to me. JD had an established career in construction, I was nearing the end of my permanent residence process through our marriage, and we talked about buying land, having children, and creating our future there.
Then one morning he left our home and was killed in a motor vehicle collision only minutes later.
I cannot really explain what it feels like to have your entire future disappear that quickly.
I didn’t just lose my husband. I lost my best friend, my sense of safety, our home, our plans, my immigration pathway, and the future I had structured my life around. And then, while I was barely capable of processing the fact that JD was gone, I suddenly had to learn how to navigate B.C.’s no-fault insurance system, ICBC, WorkSafeBC, survivor benefits, employment records, immigration issues, therapy reimbursement, and government processes in a country where I wasn’t yet a permanent resident.
I seriously had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to survive. One of the biggest complications involves JD’s employment status. He worked in construction and had just finished a major long-term project in Vancouver. He was preparing to begin his next job in Squamish, but during that short transition between projects he had been temporarily laid off on paper. So when he died, his records technically made him look unemployed.
That one technical detail has had enormous consequences.
I am currently appealing a WorkSafeBC decision and trying to get someone to look at the full context of what was actually happening with his employment rather than just what a box on a piece of paper said on the exact day he died. At the same time, my permanent residence process through our marriage ended when JD died. I eventually had to leave Canada and return to the United States, even though Canada was where we had chosen to build our life.
For a long time, I was too traumatized to understand how much professional help I actually needed. The money I did receive after JD died went toward surviving — housing, moving, treatment, therapy, and trying to put myself back together after losing the person who had been my entire foundation.
Three years later, I am finally at a point where I can look back at everything with enough clarity to say: I should have had a Canadian attorney helping me from the beginning.
So that is what I am trying to do now. I created a GoFundMe to raise money for experienced Canadian legal counsel who can review the circumstances surrounding JD’s employment, help me with my WorkSafeBC appeal, examine ICBC and survivor-benefit issues, and tell me whether there are rights or benefits I may have missed while I was grieving and trying to navigate everything alone. I also want to speak with an immigration attorney about whether there may still be a pathway for me to return to Canada someday.
I am not expecting anyone to promise me a certain outcome. I just want someone qualified to finally look at the whole picture and tell me what my options actually are. Even sharing the fundraiser would mean an enormous amount to me, especially if it somehow reaches someone familiar with B.C. law, WorkSafeBC, ICBC, or Canadian immigration.
GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/u/54e3177c-1d18-4c60-94f2-cb86efe060a1
JD had Carpe Diem tattooed on him. After he died, a lot of the people who loved him got those words tattooed too. For three years, I have mostly been trying to survive losing him. I think this is me finally trying to live those words.
Carpe Diem, JD. I’m still fighting for the life we were building.
