Sanford mom struggles to bury son at Christmas
11-year-old died Nov. 24 after being hit by car while crossing street
Roberta Jordan should be finishing her last-minute shopping, putting the final touches on the tree and lining up the matching Christmas outfits she usually buys her kids.
Instead, she’s arranging the funeral Saturday of her oldest son, 11-year-old Michael Jordan-Benfer.
Friends and strangers finally raised enough money through a GoFundMe account to bury the boy, a sixth-grader at Sanford Middle School who was hit by a car on Nov. 23. He died early the next morning.
“I spent Thanksgiving in bed,” Jordan said.
Florida was supposed to be the family’s chance for a fresh start.
Jordan, a 30-year-old home health aide from New York, moved here with her four children in late August after ending her relationship with the children’s father.
In Central Florida, she had a cousin with three children of her own. They are now all living in a single apartment. The oldest of her cousin’s children, a 15-year-old girl, was with Michael as they walked home from a store on a Saturday evening, crossing
West 25th Street and Hartwell Avenue just a few minutes after the sun dipped below the horizon.
The driver never saw the boy. Though the investigation is not formally closed yet, no one has been cited.
Christina Corbitt, a fellow home health aide who had worked with Jordan in New York, set up the GoFundMe account to
try to help, knowing the family was struggling.
The funeral had to be postponed twice because Jordan couldn’t pay the already discounted amount. Michael’s father spent his entire savings on a flight to Orlando after the accident. He couldn’t afford to stay for the services.
“I would do anything for those kids,” Corbitt said. “Michael was a very, very, very sweet, loving, good kid, just all the way around. He was a great big brother … I just am limited in what I can do, being out of state. And, you know, we as parents never expect to have to do this, so it’s not like she had money set aside for a funeral.”
The campaign raised enough for the $4,885 funeral and burial, much of it through a single donation from a Missouri couple who started a foundation after losing their two young sons to a rare autoimmune disorder.
“I am beyond grateful as to the kindness you all have shown me in the beginning of this lifelong nightmare,” Jordan posted on her Facebook page. “Today’s the day my heart breaks for the millionth [time]. I just want my son back so bad.”
Michael, was funny, charming, a natural entertainer, she wrote. He made
TikTok videos that had him lip-syncing to Drake or creating dance moves.
In one, he simply tells his mom how much he loves her.
Now she tries to keep functioning enough to care for her two daughters — Chanda, 9, and Nevaeh, 3 — and son Robert Jr., 8. Robert’s birthday was the day after his brother died.
“He is having a lot of trouble sleeping,” Jordan said. “He and Michael have shared a room since he was a baby.”
As she talks, she flips through photos of happier times.
“When Michael was 5, I stayed up all night wrapping presents, then finally fell asleep just before morning,” she said. “All of them got up and opened every single present under the tree — even the ones that weren’t theirs. Then they came and woke me up. I didn’t even get to see it.”
This year, of course, there are no presents. Jordan isn’t working at the moment. The GoFundMe account closed after the funeral money was raised, and by the time Jordan had pulled herself together enough to apply elsewhere for gifts for her kids, the agencies already had finished their holiday distributions.
“Christmas has definitely been on our minds, but it hasn’t been a top priority,” Corbitt said. “We were all focused on the funeral. But after all that the kids have been through, I wish someone could help them.”