So my friend’s father has been in a battle with brain cancer. He was in Washington State for some holistic treatments when things turned worse and he was taken to a hospital. He has been there for about a month.

It was touch and go for a while, but now the doctors think he’s healthy enough to be able to fly back to Maryland. The bad news is the health insurance company won’t pay for he $22,000 cost of the flight back. If he doesn’t come back home the hospital is going to discharge him to a less-than reputable nursing home.

Not only does Kenton Shin need to come home, but his loving wife and children also need to be back home. They have put their own lives on hold and stayed by his side this whole time.

The mother of my friend is going to use the last of her retirement savings toward the flight but there will still be a good sum unpaid. They have 10 days to pay it after the flight.

I’ve been following the amazing story of this family for months. While I don’t have anything near enough to pay the bill, I’m going to be sending them a little something.

So here’s what I have to say.

Enough with this mentality that people need to help themselves. It’s time for us as humans to show we are better than that. They need help paying the bill, and I think we should each put something in to help. Go without your starbucks coffee for a week and use that money to help them. You get the idea.

I recommend you check the blog out and decide for yourself whether you can pitch in a little. Details of how to donate are on the blog. Every dollar will help.

Here is a snippet from John Shin’s blog yesterday that brought me to tears:
“I helped my mother view her finances online, and it turned out that the only way to free up such a large amount of capital was to basically deplete what was left of her retirement savings account. That really broke my heart. . .

She gave me a smile and said that she could just work harder and earn more money. We both knew, however, that she didn’t have too many working years left.

Later in the evening, . . . I stood next to my father’s bed for a while and just watched him breathe. And then I began to talk to him. I told him not to worry about the bills, the finances, the house, or anything, because I would take care of everything.

I told him to just concentrate on getting better. I then held his hand tightly, blinked away my tears, and promised him that, above all, no matter what happened to him, I would take care of my mother. That was a promise. I’m not sure if my father heard me or not. I like to think that he did. But in the end it doesn’t matter, because it felt more like a promise to myself than to him.

As I grow accustomed to living in a world without my father, I’m starting to see that the end of this chapter in my father’s life will mark the beginning of a new one in mine.”