NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A vacation to her favorite place in the world ended tragically for 43-year-old Renee Brancato of North Tonawanda.
The mother of three was on a trip for Mother's Day with her daughter when she fell ill. She's a diabetic and came down with ketoacidosis and pneumonia and died on Friday, May 17.
"She thought she was gonna get better and told my brother she loved him and she would see them soon...and that was the last time anyone talked to her," said Nicole Brancato, her sister-in-law.
On top of the difficulty of coping with the sudden loss, Renee's body is still in Jamaica.
"We can't even start the grieving process because we're still figuring out how to get her home," said Brancato.
So it's constant calls with the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica to decide what to do with her remains and how to get her back.
A tough and expensive process, they're quoted at $8,500.
"That doesn't include the cost of having a funeral or a memorial here for her, that's literally just to get her remains back to America," said Brancato.
She was a lifelong resident of North Tonawanda. Her family wants her remembered as a great person, a friend to many and a lover of sunflowers.
"People are just shocked, she had diabetes her whole life, to go somewhere on vacation that's like her favorite place in the world...to go away for Mother's Day and then to not come home it's just unbelievable," said Brancato.
They set up a GoFundMe page for people to help them get her back to the U.S.
