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A Gift of Love: Send Grandma to Greece!

Dani Jackson Start Date: Dec 12, 2025 - End Date: Apr 11, 2026

My Travel Story

by: Dani Jackson Start Date: Dec 12, 2025 - End Date: Apr 11, 2026
There are people in this world who give so much of themselves that you wonder how one heart can hold that much strength, compassion, and love.
For my siblings and I, that person is our grandmother, Queen Esther Payton.

This year, she beat cancer for the second time in her life — this time a glioblastoma, a diagnosis with a five-year survival rate of just 5–7%. And yet, the same way she always has, she faced it with grace, humor, stubbornness, and faith. Whenever she slips up, she jokes, “You know I have a brain tumor, right?”
Just like she did when she survived breast cancer back in 2008.
Just like she has through every challenge life has placed in her path.

Our grandmother has spent her entire life taking care of others.

She became the first Black woman to graduate from her nursing school in New Jersey, at a time when she endured racism every single day. But she pushed through because she believed in helping people. She went on to serve communities in Boston, New York, and Hackensack for decades — 40, almost 50 years of caring for strangers like they were her own.

And then, in her later years, she became a lawyer.
Not for money, not for status — but so she could help people who were struggling and didn’t have anyone in their corner. She did pro bono work simply because she believed it was the right thing to do.

She has been the lifelong caregiver for my aunt, who faces significant health challenges. She cared for my grandfather until the day he passed from stage 4 cancer. And she did it all without a single complaint, always saying, “It’s family. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

But the truth is: not everyone would do what she has done.

She grew up in North Carolina in the late 1950s, where Christmas gifts were walnuts and fruit — and she was grateful for them. She has lived a life of giving, surviving, fighting, loving, and serving. And every Christmas, when I ask her what she wants, she always says the same thing:

“Nothing.”

But this year, for the first time, she asked for something.
She wants to go to Greece.

So guess what?

This woman — this warrior, this caretaker, this history-maker, this grandmother who built so much of who we are — is going to Greece. We want to send her and my aunt on a trip they'll never forget.

We may not have all the funds by Christmas 2025, but we plan to show her the beautiful progress we’ve made — a surprise she has no idea is coming.

This campaign isn’t really about the money.
It’s about honoring the people who raised us, who stood for us, who sacrificed for us. It’s about giving the world to someone who has given the world to so many others.

If you choose to give, thank you.
If you choose to share, thank you.
If all you can offer is love and encouragement, thank you.

Every bit of support helps me give her something she has spent her entire life giving to everyone else:

Joy. Rest. And a dream fulfilled.


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