Charity Helped a Survivor Who Needed Help Surviving

When their father died in 1997, Michelle Fletcher and her older brother, Robert Russell, promised they would look after their mother, Mildred, who had Alzheimer's disease. Fletcher took care of her physical needs, and Russell, a supervisory budget analyst in the military, paid for her medical expenses.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Russell took Mildred to an adult day-care center on his way to work at the Pentagon. He never came home that day. He died at age 54.

After the terrorist attack, Mildred kept looking for her son. "She would walk around the house calling for Bobby," Fletcher recalled. "Then two months after it, she stopped talking."

As Mildred's health declined, Fletcher quit her job to care full time for her mother in their Southeast Washington home. Fletcher depleted her savings account to pay the bills. The stress was intense. Her life, she said, "became a fog."

"My health was failing so much," Fletcher said. "I didn't care for myself. I only cared about her."

Then the Survivors' Fund stepped in. The charity helped pay for Mildred's respite care to give Fletcher a break. The charity helped with projects around the house that Russell once did, such as mowing the lawn. The charity helped pay for a new roof and an air-conditioning unit.

The fund also helped Fletcher pay for several surgeries she needed for chronic health problems and sent her to counseling to help overcome the trauma of losing her brother in the attacks. But Fletcher said the personal support from her case managers was what really helped her conquer the grief.

"They knew what I was going through," Fletcher said. "They saw first-hand that I wasn't surviving, and they helped me. They were vital."

Had the Survivors' Fund not aided her, Fletcher, now 51, said, "I wouldn't have been here to tell about it."

-- Philip Rucker