For my Grandfather’s Funeral ‍

Hi, my name is Jalyka. On February 11th, 2024, my Grandfather [Ashfield Roxborough] died in Jamaica after suffering from kidney cancer.

2 weeks prior to his passing, he was already on a health decline and they found the cancer late stage and told us that he had a month left to live. At that point… he was already too frail to travel back to the US.

He has 5 daughters, yet.. only my mother has been foot with the bill and responsibility of everything for his funeral. 3 out of 4 of his other daughters(my aunts) refuse to even attend the funeral, let alone help with any of the arrangements. The 1 aunt that has not been doing that, recently suffered from a mental break last year and has mental health issues and my mom is currently the caretaker of her 2 children(my cousins).

My mom has been solely paying for my grandfathers care takers and his nursing home facilitations since September 2021 AND is the only one who flew and visited him 9 times within his last year in Jamaica. We all knew that his old age was catching up to him and my mom flew us to say our last goodbyes to him (as per his request, he knew he wouldn’t be alive for much longer and was requesting to see all of his daughters and grandchildren) in September 2023 where he told me that would be the last time I’d be seeing him and he wouldn’t be around for much longer.

Prior to her moving him to a nursing home in Jamaica with 24 hour care, we(me, my brothers and mom) were the ones doing our best to take care of him before it became too overwhelming as he had no control over his bowels and had dementia. He would poop all over the bathroom almost daily & sneak sugar(as a diabetic) & even pulled knives on us or leave the house and try to run away. Some days he did not know who we were.

This was not the same Grandfather I grew up with.. he was always there. Always jovial, funny, loved to play the guitar and read the Bible with me. He took me & my little brother and cousins to school every morning. We’d pick fruits and cook together. He’d take us to the beach and ride bikes with us and he was truly my first father when my own abandoned me. Dementia took away my grandfather before death did.

The funeral will be held in Jamaica as that is where he died and we currently live in FL.

The funds will go towards his cremation, funeral service and tickets to and from Jamaica for us and a few of my cousins that would like to attend but can’t ask their own mothers for help.

I just need help.. humbly. I want to help my mom in any way I can. She needs help to lay her father to rest since she is damn near doing it alone and it’s unfair that she is grieving her father while having to arrange everything to put him to rest alone.

Thank you so much for anything you may be able to give. God bless you