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Mother, daughter seek help this holiday season
By MANDY COLOSIMO
Era Reporter
news@bradfordera.com
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Era photo by Wade Aiken
Edy Green, who has lung cancer in both lungs, sits in her chair watching the television and the view of her neighbor’s apartment Sunday night. She and her daughter, Tay Green, an eleven-year breast cancer survivor, are finding it harder this year to make ends meet this holiday season and have turned to the Era’s Less Fortunate (ELF) Fund for assistance. |
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(Editor’s note: Names of the family members have been changed to protect their privacy.)
Like many families in our area, Tay Green cannot afford outside care for her sick mother. She stays home, is unemployed and is having a difficult time this holiday season.
The ELF Fund not only assists families with children to have a happier holiday, but also provides for senior citizens who find it hard to make ends meet.
Edy and Tay Green, long-time residents of Bradford, are an example of the families that are in need locally this holiday season. Edy Green has congestive heart failure, cancer in both lungs, recently spent a week in the hospital for a broken hip as a result of a fall, and has had frequent bouts with pneumonia.
Tay Green, who is in her fifties, is an eleven-year survivor of breast cancer and has cared for her mother “forever.” “She has always been by my side,” said Edy Green.
Edy Green, who will be 88-years-old soon, and Tay Green, her dedicated daughter, are both survivors. In 1995, Edy Green was diagnosed with lung cancer and had to have surgery to remove about half of her left lung.
Two years later, Tay Green was diagnosed with breast cancer, “like mother, like daughter,” Tay Green says, chuckling. Soon after, her mother’s cancer spread to the other lung.
“Every year, it seems, something else happens. But, I am a survivor. Even my doctors are surprised that I am still here,” said Edy Green. The small-framed woman sat in the armchair looking out the window at the snow that had covered the rear yard of her subsidized apartment.
Before Thanksgiving, the apartment was already decorated festively for Christmas with a tree and snowmen in the living room. Now, they wait to see what an elf can bring them.
Edy Green simply asks for “just a happy, healthy holiday.” But when Tay Green helped her mother apply to the ELF Fund this year, she asked for a set of light brown curtains for the living room window which her mother’s chair faces. While there are currently curtains hanging, some new ones would be nice.
They also need a new blender, if possible, because theirs quit working recently and they don’t have the extra money in their budget to buy another one. Tay Green was hesitant to ask for anything for herself, but finally asked for a kitchen broom. “A new one would help do the job,” she said, one with an angled brush.
The Greens do have a car but it needed to have some work done this past month. “It cost $200, which we couldn’t afford, but the mechanic we go to knows my car and helps me out with the pricing,” Tay Green said.
The two are making ends meet on Edy Green’s Social Security of just over $900 a month, almost half of which goes to paying basic household bills like mortgage and utilities, totaling almost $400 a month. On top of that, the two have basic expenses of food, medication and other necessities. Neither of the Greens receive a pension, public assistance, food stamps or income from an employer. They cannot afford the extra expense of full-time care, so Tay Green, for the most part, is her mother’s nurse.
At one point during the interview, Edy Green, who is on oxygen 24 hours day, had a terrible coughing spell. Her daughter came to her side. She took out an inhaler from a wicker basket on her mother’s walker and helped calm the wheezing. It took several tries to get the medicine in, but Tay Green was in no hurry.
Edy Green was born and raised in Philadelphia but “I sort of drifted to Bradford because I followed my husband here. He was from here originally.” She worked in the kitchens of a couple of local restaurants years ago.
Tay Green, who has never been married and has no children, said she just wants to see something under the tree this year for her mother — “Mom is special.” She is looking forward to the holidays and says of her mother “She is living on borrowed time here.”
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