If you’re reading this, it’s probably because your path has crossed with Fabry’s, or perhaps you’re here by chance and never met him.

My husband passed away a few days ago, after living with an illness diagnosed a few years ago, when our girls had already been born. Despite the strength, incredible vitality and joy that always set him apart, the illness took him from us unjustly and prematurely, leaving a void that nothing and no one will ever be able to fill, in the lives of all those who knew him and loved him.

Yet Fabry did not leave us with despair, but rather a will to live and look to the future; he left us tenacity and courage, because that is who he was, and I want to carry on what we were, what he was, for myself and for our daughters.

It is with these feelings, but also with great humility and, at the same time, dignity, that I decided to launch this fundraising campaign. With a single income and the girls still young, I know the road ahead will be long, certainly full of joy but also inevitably difficult. It is unthinkable for me to continue paying the current mortgage, but with €40,000 and a bit of effort, I should be able to reduce the monthly payment to a level I can manage, and keep our current home. A pipe dream? Perhaps. But I told myself I have to try.

I would like to thank, with my heart in my hands, anyone who is able to make a donation, even an anonymous or symbolic one; I would also like to thank those who have taken the time to read these few lines, because even if you are unable or unwilling to make a donation, I hope you, in turn, may find hope, confidence or inspiration, just as I have found by reading so many sad stories, all united by an extraordinary desire to ‘get through this’.