My grandmother has always been an important piece of my life. Growing up, she came on family vacations, took me and my siblings out on day trips, and every week during the summer we would go paint ceramics together. Heck, I spent almost all of my summers as a kid at her house. Every winter, she would gather my mom, my siblings, and me at her house to make my great grandmother’s pierogi recipe for Christmas Eve.

I think saying she was important to me is an understatement. She accepted me for who I am after I came out, before even my parents were ready to. She was kind, understanding, and in so many ways helped shape who I am.

It’s incredibly hard watching someone you love slowly pass, and it’s also been hard watching what my mom is going through. For the past 10 years, my mom has cared for my grandmother as she progressively needed more and more help. For the last five years especially, there really haven’t been days off, and a lot of the time, there haven’t been nights off either. She has given so much of her own life to make sure my grandma was cared for, had company, and most importantly, knew she was loved all the way until the end.

My mom may sound like a superhero, and in my eyes she kind of is. But even after giving everything she can, there is one thing she can’t give her mom. The burial she wishes for.

My grandmother unfortunately has nothing saved for funeral expenses, and her final wish is to have a traditional burial like her own mother had. My mom can’t afford to give her that, and neither can the rest of our family.

After watching my mom give everything she could to her mother for all these years, I want to try to take this one weight off her shoulders. I want her to be able to spend these final moments with her mom and, when the time comes, grieve without worrying about how she’s going to afford everything that comes next.

I want my grandmother to be laid to rest the way she wanted, and I want my mom to know that after everything she did for her mother, she was able to fulfill this final wish too.

Anything you can donate, or even just sharing this, would mean more to my family than I can say.