When Vinita “G-Ma” Booker’s daughter found herself unable to care for her son, Booker stepped in to care for her grandson Kristian.
“That’s my mission in life. To keep him happy,” said Booker.
But this mission isn’t always easy for Booker. That’s because Kristian has cerebral palsy. Kristian’s condition requires him to be in a wheelchair and have Booker puree his food since he can’t chew it properly.
The biggest obstacle for Booker is that her home isn’t wheelchair accessible. That means she has to carry all 65 lbs. of her teenage grandson up and down the stairs every time they leave or come back home.
And she does it all by herself. She also has to carry his very large wheelchair up those steps too.
“It’s 12 stairs that I hoist him up on my shoulders and hold him tight,” Booker told KSDK 5 on Your Side.
She counts every step on the way down. Booker says she also worries how she would get Kristian out of the house during an emergency.
Still, Booker says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Everyday I look at him, he’s a joy. He’s happy. I’m happy to be able to be the one to take care of him and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world,” she explained to ABC10.
And that’s an understatement. This boy has the most beautiful smile. But family members did want to try and make life a little bit easier on Booker and her grandson so they set up a GoFundMe page to try and raise money to build a wheelchair ramp at their home.
After their story was promoted on the local news, their campaign raised more than $18,000. But some local 5 On Your Side viewers wanted to make sure that Booker didn’t pay a dime for that ramp.
“Right the second I saw it, and knowing the struggles they were going through to get that done, I thought ‘I don’t understand what the big deal is. We’re going to go there and talk to them and get a ramp on the back and get him, so she doesn’t have to carry him down those steps anymore,’” Bill Willman told the news outlet.
Willman and the Paric Construction company decided they would build that ramp for Booker and her grandson.
“I’m so happy that Billy and his crew decided to step up and do this for my baby, because we really, really need it,” said Booker.
She said the crew was “Godsent” and that this was the best birthday present Kristain could ever have. The deck and ramp were estimated to take about three weeks to build.
And Paric Construction company said they would foot the entire bill so that the GoFundMe campaign money could be used for other projects that could make life a little bit easier on Booker and her grandson.
“We want to do a wheelchair accesible walk-in tub for Kristian and whatever other things he’s going to need to help get him around,” Booker explains. “He’s happy and it’s my mission in life to just keep him that way.”
And from the look on his face, it seems as if she’s doing a really good job of keeping him happy.
You can tell he really does love his G-Ma! Learn more about Kristian and how the kindness of others helped to relieve some of his G-Ma’s caretaking struggles in the video below.
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