Teen’s Dying Wish to Reunite With Parents to Say Goodbye

Yahoo Parenting

Qirat Chapra has been sick for much of her short life — the 18-year-old suffers from T-cell lymphoma, chronic lung disease, and frequent pneumonia and is living on borrowed time in a Texas hospice. She has one final wish before she dies: to hug her parents, whom she hasn’t seen in 13 years.

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The teen, who moved to the U.S. from Pakistan at age 4 to seek medical care and be raised by her aunt, has posted a heartbreaking video online, pleading for the government to approve her parents’ visa applications, which have been denied multiple times.

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Qirat Chapra (left) has one dying wish: to meet and hug her parents, whom she has not seen in years. (Photo: ABC-13)

“I have been a patient at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital all my life and I lived without my parents and my two little brothers,” Chapra says in the video, shot from her hospital bed. “I’m only surviving because of all these prayers and all this belief … living up to each day that my parents would come and hug me.”

Chapra’s aunt Neelam Ghanchi, who calls the teen’s immune system “zero,” told ABC-13 that the parents’ visa applications were denied because Chapra has family members living in the U.S. who are able to care for her. The only option that’s left, immigration lawyer Gordon Quan tells ABC-13, is “humanitarian parole.” He says, “We have to show justification why that person should be allowed in the country and justification … that the person would return back to their home country at the end of the time.” Yahoo Parenting could not reach Ghanchi or Quan for comment.

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Qirat Chapra’s aunt Neelam Ghanchi talks about her niece’s grim outlook. (Photo: ABC-13)

A White House petition that’s acquired more than 18,000 signatures, of the nearly 100,000 required, asks the Obama administration to issue emergency visas to Chapra’s parents.

For now, Chapra is hanging on. “My last wish [is] to see them,” she says in the video. “I don’t want to leave this world without seeing them. It’s been all my life and I don’t know how long I’m going to stand.”

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