Maxine

After her husband of 49 years passed away in 2010, Maxine, a mother of six adult children, started splitting her time between her home with her daughter in Missouri and her son’s home in Texas. During her recent stay with her son in Dallas, her cancer progressed and metastasized. When chemo left her desperately ill, Maxine made the decision to choose hospice care. When her hospice social worker sat down with Maxine and asked what she could do for her, Maxine told her, “I just want to go home.” Unable to fly and too weak to ride in a car, the social worker reached out to Project 4031 for help with non-emergency stretcher transportation to get Maxine back home to Missouri. Her daughter Nicki raved about the transportation crew who so attentively cared for her mother. Nicki was able to caravan with them for the trip so that she could be nearby if her mother needed her.

Nicki describes her mother as faithful, religious, and sassy. Maxine could usually be found in the center of the fun. People loved her, and she loved the company of friends and family. Before her cancer diagnosis, Maxine was a healthy senior who enjoyed going to the casino and playing cards with friends. She loved to cook and bake for herself and others. Maxine was a woman of faith. Before she was sick, she attended Mass regularly and continued to worship virtually. She was part of a rosary group that gathers to pray once a week. Often these friends, themselves in their 70s and 80s, would come to sit with Maxine. She also loved to feed the hungry, a passion she shared with her son. Maxine met her husband while down by the river. He was cooking and she thought, “if he knows how to cook, that is the man for me.” Her husband planted a lilac bush in their yard and would pick bouquets of lilacs for her. Both Maxine and her husband came from large families, and together they raised six children. Her husband was disabled with rheumatoid arthritis at a young age, and Maxine took on the responsibility of being the full-time breadwinner, working in a local factory and later as a secretary for different divisions of the state of Missouri. In her free time, she liked to take her children to their cabin at the river, and even in her final weeks, she enjoyed sitting outside a few times a day. Project 4031 was grateful for the opportunity to help Maxine return to the comfort of her Missouri home, her lilac bush in the yard, and the company and comfort of generations of her family.