I shared this highlighted blog picture on social media 6 years ago today, March 3, 2020. Completely unaware that only days later I would experience the devastating loss of Nolan on March 14th, and then in 2023 stand face to face with a cancer diagnosis. When I shared it, it was just a quote that resonated. It felt encouraging. Hopeful. Inspiring. I didn’t realize it was prophetic. Just days after sharing it, our family was shattered by the unexpected loss of Nolan. Grief came like a tidal wave — disorienting, suffocating, relentless. Watching my sister walk through the unimaginable. Watching my parents carry a pain no parent should ever have to bear. Loving on my sweet niece Sophie as she tried to understand a world without her brother. All of it unfolding in the middle of COVID — isolation, uncertainty, distance compounding the sorrow. And in the midst of it, I was navigating being away from Keith in Nevada, where he was holding down our home and small business, carryi...
An invitation to reflect, heal, and let your future self speak. A few days ago, my niece gave me a simple but powerful assignment: If you could write a letter to yourself on the day of your cancer diagnosis, what would you say? At first, I just sat with the question. That day still lives in my body. In my breath. In my memory. But as I began to write, I realized something unexpected — this assignment isn’t just about cancer. It works for anything. A breakup. A loss. A scary medical report. A season of uncertainty. A moment when your world shifted and you didn’t yet know how you would survive it. We all have a “before” and an “after.” We all have moments that reshape us. Writing to your past self creates a bridge between who you were and who you’ve become. It allows wisdom, compassion, faith, and perspective to travel backward in time. It reminds us that even when we couldn’t see the road ahead, we were already becoming someone stronger, softer, braver, and more rooted in tr...