After a two-year fight with terminal disease, a Utah mother who created a GoFundMe page for her own funeral passed away.
According to her cousin Angelique Rivera, Erika Diarte-Carr, 30, passed away on Friday. Carr, a single mother, raised two children in Ogden, some 40 miles north of Salt Lake City: Jeremiah, 7, and Aaliyah, 5.
“She has joined her mother Sylvia, her Brother JJ, her uncles Chava & Loui on the other side. She fought a long and hard battle. She was strong and held on as long as she could for her babies,” Rivera stated on Facebook.
According to her GoFundMe page, Carr was diagnosed with stage 4 small cell lung cancer on May 7, 2022, after physicians discovered that several tumors had spread throughout her body.
She then received a diagnosis of Cushing Syndrome on January 17, 2024, a rare condition brought on by abnormally elevated cortisol levels. After that, she developed a number of underlying problems, such as Moon Face, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, rapid weight gain, edema, and bone and muscle degradation.
In September, Carr was given three months to live
According to a GoFundMe post, Carr was given a life expectancy of only three months by an oncologist on September 18, which resulted in the additional responsibility of organizing her own burial.
“I have been given 3 months to live. 3 months to spend with my babies and loved ones. 3 months to make the best of what time I have left,” Carr stated. “During these next couple of months I need to make sure my kids will be ok after I am gone. I am faced now with the most difficult thing of planning my own funeral.”
Carr added that because of the grave circumstances, she had to look for as much financial support as she could, even though she usually doesn’t accept assistance from others. She had no life insurance, therefore her prognosis barred her from working.
She expressed her desire to fund roughly $5,000 for burial costs and other expenses in order to “leave something behind for my babies.”
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Over $1 million is raised on GoFundMe
Carr thanks everyone who contributed to her GoFundMe campaign, which as of Monday night had raised over $1,180,000, in an update posted on October 3.
She said that she would use the money to organize a large family vacation that would provide her kids “with memories that’ll last a lifetime.”
“Other than that I can promise you that your help is going to keep my kids financially stable the rest of their lives as I am putting it all into a trust fund for them,” Carr stated.
Carr expressed gratitude to the contributors for making a difference in her kids’ life.
USA Today: Utah mother who raised over $1 million for her funeral dies from cancer
