Hi. My name is Ricardo. Today, I type this to you all on behalf of my little brother, Brandon Richard Paulo.

Brandon was born January 8, 2011. He was born with a heart defect known as HLHS — this essentially means that he only had half of a heart. He also only had one lung. The doctors had no faith that he’d live to see a full year….he went on to live for 15 years.

Growing up, I watched Brandon fight for his life every step of the way. I watched how his body was severely limited compared to a “normal” person. He went from being an energetic and happy little boy, to an exhausted, jaded and depressed adolescent — all in a short amount of time. Middle school robbed him of his smile. They bullied him for not being able to run or walk. He had a big interest in basketball….was never able to play. Throughout these struggles, I still saw a kid with big dreams. He never gave up on trying to live. After giving up on his hoop dreams, he developed a true love for coding — specifically for game development. He loved Roblox so much. He even started to develop a server with his group. His dream was to make it in coding…and one day even develop an entire game. He dreamed of getting rich to help his family live a better life. He knew very early on that we were poor, but we always tried our best to give him whatever his heart desired.

We all thought that 15 was a new chapter for Brandon. Just a month before his birthday, on December 1, his heart gave out on him and he was out cold for about 5-10 minutes. In this time, he said he saw our late grandmother and that she brought him back to us because “she said I’m not supposed to be here yet; it’s not my time.”

Unfortunately, that time has come for our little Brandon. On Monday, February 9, around 4PM…he went into cardiac arrest. He was revived, but barely. He suffered brain damage from losing oxygen for too long, and he was not able to function without all of the medication and life support machinery he had going into his body.

Saturday, February 21, was when he took his last breath on his own. The doctors were able to lower the amount of oxygen going into his breathing tube. Unfortunately, his body had been declining since.

Brandon fought for his life until his very last breath. The fight was finally over on Sunday, February 22 at 8:27PM.

The pain that my family and I are left with does not compare to the struggle that my brother spent his whole life living with. I wish to honor my brother and learn to embrace that he is no longer in pain and that he is now in a place where he too can embrace that he is no longer in pain. Any bit of help to give our little Brandon the most beautiful send off is truly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Long Live Brandon