When Life Hits You With a Foreclosure Notice
A Story About Family, Home, and the Things That Matter Most
A personal reflection on unexpected crises, resilience, and what it really means to take care of family.
I've been staring at this blank page for three days, trying to figure out how to tell you about the most stressful month of my life. Not because I don't know what to say, but because admitting I need help, really need help, is harder than anything prepares you for.
On August 1st, I walked up to my front door after a normal day and found a piece of paper stapled to it that changed everything. Foreclosure notice. Our family home of 34 years was going to be taken away in less than three months because of $18,094.26 in unpaid property taxes.
The first thing I felt wasn't panic or fear, it was confusion. My mom, Inaam, has always been meticulous about money. She came to America as a young woman from the Middle East, worked her way through school, and spent decades as a business administration and economics professor. She taught other people how to manage money, for crying out loud. How could this have happened?
The Woman Who Built Our American Dream
Let me tell you about my mother, because understanding her makes this story make sense.
Inaam arrived in America with determination and very little else. She worked multiple jobs while earning her Master’s degree from Syracuse University, eventually building a respected career in academia. She bought our house in 1991 with a 30-year mortgage, a milestone that represented everything she'd worked for. For three decades, she never missed a payment. Not once.
She beat breast cancer. She survived two strokes. She raised me in this house with the kind of strength that only mothers seem to possess, the strength that comes from knowing you've already overcome impossible odds just by being here.
But here's what I didn't fully understand until recently: even the strongest people can be vulnerable to time and circumstance.
When Independence Becomes Isolation
After Mom's strokes, there were subtle changes I should have noticed sooner. She became more private about finances, more insistent on handling things herself. I thought it was just her independent nature, the same trait that had carried her through decades of building a life in a new country.
In 2021, she made the final payment on our house. Thirty years of mortgage payments, done. It should have been pure celebration. But when the mortgage company stopped handling the escrow account, the responsibility for property taxes shifted directly to her. Due to age-related cognitive decline, something she was fighting to hide from everyone, including herself, she didn't understand this change.
For four years, the taxes went unpaid. She never told me. She probably didn't fully realize what was happening.
The Math of Desperation
When I found that foreclosure notice, I had about 90 days to come up with $18,094.26 or lose the only true home I've ever known. The place where Storm, our Siberian Husky, lived his entire 13-year life (no he wasn’t supposed to be on the couch, but that’s okay). Where every holiday happened, every milestone was celebrated, every tragedy overcome, and every family memory was made.
I just got an amazing new job! Good timing, right? Except I start September 8th, and the payment has to be made by November 14th. I did the math obsessively, calculating every paycheck, every dollar of Mom's fixed income, every possible expense.
Best case scenario (factoring in living expenses): we can save $19,000 by the deadline. Worst case scenario: We can save $16,117.
Either way, I WILL find a way to cover the tax bill. But "either way" assumes nothing goes wrong, no unexpected expenses, no delays in paychecks, no emergencies. When you're cutting it this close, there's no room for life happening.
The Hardest Thing I've Ever Had to Write
I've always been the type of person who figures things out on my own. Ask anyone who knows me, I'm the guy people call when they need help, not the guy who asks for it. But watching my mother, this woman who built our American dream from nothing, potentially lose everything because of circumstances beyond her control... that broke something in me.
So, I'm doing something I never thought I'd do. I've started a fundraising campaign.
I'm not asking people to solve this problem for us. I want to cover the vast majority of this debt myself, and I can. But I'm asking for a small buffer. Two thousand dollars. Just enough to make sure we don't lose our family home because we came up short.
I've uploaded documentation. I've been transparent about the numbers. I've done my work like I'm back grading one of Mom's economics classes.
What Home Really Means
This isn't just about a house, though I know that's what it looks like from the outside. This is about dignity. It's about my mother being able to age in place, surrounded by everything familiar, everything that represents the life she built.
It's about the kitchen where she taught me to cook Middle Eastern dishes that connected me to a culture I was born too far away from. It's about the living room where she (and I) graded papers for decades, shaping young minds in business and economics. It's about the rooms and hallways where she recovered from cancer, where she relearned to walk after her strokes.
It's about not letting the woman who gave me everything… lose everything because life got complicated and time got away from us.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Asking for Help
Here's what I've learned about fundraising in the past week: It strips away every comfortable lie you tell yourself about independence and self-reliance. Every share, every donation, every message of support is also a reminder that you couldn't handle this alone.
But here's what else I've learned: People are incredibly kind. Strangers might donate money they probably need themselves. Friends will share the campaign without me asking. Family members I haven't spoken to in years might reach out with support.
Maybe this is what community actually means, not just celebrating together when things go well, but showing up when someone's world is falling apart.
A Promise and a Request
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for listening to my story. If you're in a position to help, whether that's a donation, a share of this article (or the GiveSendGo campaign), or even just keeping us in your thoughts, I'm grateful beyond words.
If we're blessed to raise more than we absolutely need, every extra dollar will go to organizations that help other senior citizens avoid similar situations. I've learned too much about how easily this can happen to good people who are trying their best.
The campaign is here: GiveSendGo | Save mom's house!
But honestly, even if you can't donate, the fact that you read this far means something to me. In a world that often feels disconnected and transactional, knowing that people still care about each other's stories... that matters more than I can express.
Time and Hope
I have 78 days left as I write this. Seventy-Eight days to make sure my mother doesn't lose the home that represents everything she worked for in America.
I'm going to make this work. With or without help, I'm going to save our house. But having a little backup, a little community support, would make the difference between barely scraping by and being able to breathe again.
If you've ever loved someone who sacrificed everything to give you a better life, you understand why I'm fighting so hard for this. If you've ever been in a situation where asking for help was the hardest thing you could imagine doing, you understand why this article was so difficult to write.
But if you've ever experienced the kindness of strangers when you needed it most, you understand why I still have hope.
Thank you for being part of my community. Thank you for caring about stories that matter. And thank you for reminding me that none of us has to face the hard things alone.
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I'll be sharing our progress and any developments in the comments, and on the GiveSendGo page. Thank you for being on this journey with us.