My name is Jenny and I'm 13 years old.

A few weeks before my 5th birthday, my dad died of throat cancer. Although he had been suffering for years, when he died, my mum, my older sister Georgia and I were in pieces. Nigel, who was a family friend and someone Georgia and I looked up to, helped us so much afterwards and he and our mum brought us up from then.

Nige and I did everything together — painting, watching TV, bike rides, days out, holidays. There was no one I was closer to, and I could go talk to him about everything. We were like best friends. Having Nigel in our lives was the best thing to ever happen. He was kind and selfless, and do anything to make us happy.

It's was in early October of 2017 when I noticed that Nigel was strangely disorientated and weak. His appetite worsened and he developed a bad headache and pains in his stomach. He had suffered with Crohn's disease from an early age, so I was used to him being in and out of hospitals and always having issues with his stomach. When Nigel was taken to A&E in an ambulance, he was taken to have a CT scan and later an MRI scan. Nothing could prepare me for what was to happen next.

The doctors told us they had diagnosed him with terminal lung cancer.

For days I felt numb, and utterly heartbroken. I knew having my Nige taken away from me was going to be like missing my legs. I started to imagine how I was going to live without him. Georgia, my mum and I all went to see him daily. By this point, he couldn't recognise any of us, and was constantly drifting in and out of sleep. He was being fed through a tube and looked so uncomfortable and unsettled. It was devastating seeing him like that. We thought we had at least a few weeks left with him.

Just a few days after being diagnosed with cancer, on 24th October he passed away. I'm very grateful he went peacefully and at rest and I know there are so many families who have been through so much worse, and my heart goes out to those people who are grieving and at loss just like me.

Since Nigel died, I have not been well enough mentally to go back to school, though I have tried so many times to get back into that routine again.

It would mean everything to me to be able to visit New York to have time away from everything, and to see my cousin who lives there. It's somewhere I've always wanted to go, and losing Nigel has made me realise just how short life is and made me want this so much more. That is the reason I decided to try crowdfunding.

I would be eternally grateful if you were able to help. It would also be amazing to hear from others who are in the same, or similar, boat.