Throw a lifeline to a mother & son, please

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Throw a lifeline to a mother & son, please

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In his nine years, his compassionate heart has glistened in his talent for drawing and music. Entirely without any family support, she's raised him to be his best. She persists with unrelenting determination to parent with absolute love despite the despairing exhaustion of her body, mind, and spirit. I know this because, as her friend, I have been witness.

In her tenacious resolve to nurture him to a productive and joyful life, she had dedicated her life to the search for answers to his physical, social, and emotional struggles. Alone, she has researched and arranged medical appointments, agency programming, special schooling, extracurricular activities, and alternative healing approaches to provide him with every opportunity to overcome and thrive, all while juggling 2 or 3 jobs at a time to make ends meet.

Overall, he's made significant strides, but, as this is written, a recent behavioral crisis has resulted in his temporary admission to a psychiatric ward at a children's hospital. She unfailingly makes the 2-hour drive 3 times a week to visit him and cries with the despondent melancholy of why her efforts have not been good enough to keep him well. She will not give up, she will persevere with hope. But, she needs a break. He needs a break.

Families with children facing devastating medical illness can, thank goodness, turn to organizations such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation. What, though, exists to catch those families with children falling into the darkness of social and emotional dis-ease? This is a special service niche seemingly only Vacations Made Easy has stepped forward to fill.

What this devoted mother and special son need is rejuvenating time together where they can slip away to a different world to experience beauty and that here-to-fore rare feeling of fun. Sadly, they have never had a vacation together. When his peers exuberantly recount their family trips, he sadly has had nothing to share, and he's felt the aloneness of it.

His dream is to swim with the dolphins. Her dream is to see him happy and healthy. My dream is to somehow bring some relief to this mother and son because when you see someone at the end of her rope, a life-line may literally be a life-saver. Please cast your vote for Paulette and her dear son, Micah.

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