A woman experiencing homelessness was living in the cemetery where her late husband was buried, until a police officer stepped in. He, along with a local college, then provided aid to the woman at a time when she needed it most.
Rhea Holmes and her husband of 26 years, Eddie Holmes, made an offer on a modest house in Syracuse in 2020. Not long after, Eddie died of a sudden heart condition, and Rhea, 55, instead used the money they were going to spend on the house to buy Eddie a burial plot at Oakwood Cemetery, CBS News and Syracuse.com reported.
Eddie’s death sent Rhea, who worked as an administrative assistant at a hospital, into a depression, causing her to lose her job, and she was eventually evicted from her home — which is when she started sleeping by her husband’s grave.
“This is what I purchased,” Rhea told CBS News while standing in front of Eddie’s plot. She added that she didn’t tell others that she had lost her home because she “didn’t want people to worry.”
“I assumed that I was going to die there,” Rhea continued, referring to the graveyard.
Cemetery staff eventually alerted local police to the fact that a woman was sleeping on the property.
Officer James Pastorello heard about the situation and realized that he actually knew Rhea, as he had given her a ride to the cemetery just a few days earlier, assuming she was merely stopping by to visit a late loved one, according to Syracuse.com.
“I was completely shocked,” Pastorello, 33, told the outlet. “When I found out she was sleeping outside, especially with how cold it was getting, that really hit me.”
Pastorello determined he needed to take action, so he purchased a hotel room for Rhea. The police officer then began reaching out to others in his local network to see if anyone could help him find her a more permanent living situation.
A friend ultimately connected Pastorello to Linda LeMura, president of Le Moyne College, and she offered to temporarily house Rhea in an unused home on campus while school was out for winter break.
“It was clear that Rhea’s situation was dire,” LeMura told PEOPLE. “Central New York winters can be brutal, so it was imperative that we found a temporary place for her to live while a long-term solution was being identified.”
The college administrator added that helping Rhea “was immediate,” explaining, “Le Moyne’s mission calls on us to serve others with a strong commitment to social justice, so helping Rhea is simply something that is in our DNA.”
Officer Pastorello then established a GoFundMe to help Rhea secure permanent housing, so she could “begin rebuilding her life.”
Word spread about Rhea’s situation, and the nonprofit A Tiny Home for Good, which provides small homes to people in need — and was founded by a Le Moyne alumnus — reached out to help offer placement.
Rhea was then able to move into a one-bedroom, 300-square-foot house on Jan. 5. “I wasn’t thinking past getting through the day before. Now I can,” Rhea told Syracuse.com.
“My old house was so close to the cemetery, and this feels like a true new beginning,” the woman, who now calls Officer Pastorello her “angel,” added. “It’s amazing. I don’t even have the words to describe it.”
“So many people feel invisible,” Rhea continued. “All it took was one person stopping to care.”