Please help me see my sick grandma before it is too late

Hi, My name’s Kurama. I need your help to raise funds, so I can visit my very sick grandmother - someone who has supported me all my life, and who I wish I could give a fraction back of the love and care she has shown me.

She is all alone save a few people back home in Brazil, and I cannot afford, in my own unstable mental, physical and financial state, to get to her, to speak to her in what could very well be my last time seeing her.

I am writing this from a place of desperation. In 2016 I moved to the UK from Brazil. It was not easy - I was running from an abusive home, struggling with my mental health, and I was forced to leave behind so many people I loved so dearly, in order to find a place of safety.

Once I got here, I worked long hours into the night, pushing myself every day, looking forward to the joy that going home (for small periods of time) offered me when I could afford it. Nothing mattered to me as much as getting home, to see my family, my friends, my god-daughter…and my grandmother. Especially my grandmother.

Those times - when I could get home to Brazil - were made comfortable by my grandmother.

Before I ran, when I was living at home, my younger years, and homelife were terrifying and filled with much pain, and the person who supported me, held me, listened to me and kept me safe from abuse when she could…as if she were my own mother, and so much more…was my grandmother.

She means more to me than I could ever put into words. And it seems, along the way, I didn’t notice how her own age was getting to her. How much it was catching up.

I have learnt that she has recently been transferred to hospital with a serious chest infection. Her only carers are my aunt - who herself is disabled and not financially stable - and who has had to take care of her alone through my grandmothers advanced dementia and various other health issues (broken femur, infections, etc.).

My own mental health has deteriorated in recent years, so much so that it has affected my physical health and I struggle to work, taking away any opportunity to visit her in Brazil, and limiting me to a few phone calls and messages per week. I fear I won’t have the funds and support to see her in what could be my last time being in her presence.

I will never be able to give back everything she gave me, but please help me to give her everything I can right now, in support and care, by helping me to raise enough money for a ticket and some money to stay with her for a few days.