S6E21: Losing My Mom Changed My Life, But It Didn't Define My Future

Welcome to the Besties With Breasties podcast.

I'm Beth Wilmes, author, speaker, and founder of a human investment organization otherwise known as a nonprofit called Faith Through Fire.

Our mission is to reduce the fear and anxiety breast cancer patients feel and replace it with hope and a path toward thriving.

I'm Jess, a mom of two, former college soccer player, elementary PE teacher, and fitness enthusiast.

I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer just before my 40th birthday.

And I'm Jamie, researcher, retired professional boxer, and breast cancer survivor who keeps life busy and joyful with a funny farm of animals, a loving family, and a big heart to serve others.

This podcast is about our experiences with breast cancer.

And life after as young survivors and moms.

Hey, Jess.

Hey.

How are you?

I'm.

Good, I'm good.

How are you?

I'm fabulous.

I'm having a great day.

I've been so productive already, so just ready to go.

I feel bad about myself now.

Don't feel bad.

Don't feel bad.

I haven't been that productive.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You.

Know how I started my day?

No, I do not.

The world is.

It could be anything.

It could be.

What have I been doing?

At 8am the invisible fence people came over because we have a new puppy.

Oh.

So today was, like, day one of training Lucy on our new underground fence.

How is that going?

It's going fine.

She's actually.

I mean, she's a smart dog, so I feel like it's going to work great.

Okay.

They get, like, three visits, and then she's supposed to be, like, more or less trained, which will be so nice because then I don't have to, like, walk her out and put her on a line or walk her with her leash.

But it was kind of funny this morning because the invisible fence people, like, pull up in their car, and it's a company car, so it has a big golden retriever on the front.

And when we were out working with her in the yard, Lucy kept getting distracted because she thought the dog was real.

Oh, well, that would be confusing if you're.

At all.

I was freaking out the whole time, and I'm like, lucy, I've been telling everybody how smart you are.

I almost, like, wouldn't they move the van if they saw that being a distraction?

She said that it's been a problem with other dogs.

Yeah,.

Especially.

Cause, like, pictures nowadays are so real.

Yeah.

This dog was enormous on this side of the.

You know, on the side of the car.

I mean, I would be scared, too.

Well, normally she's really Friendly.

And she, like, wants to run up to, you know, other dogs, but because this dog was, like, the size of a dinosaur.

Yeah, I think she was, like, intimidated.

Oh, I mean, yeah, for sure.

Anyway, that's how I started my morning.

Yeah.

Oh, that's.

Good.

You know, I guess that's kind of productive.

Yeah, I think so.

So today we've got a guest.

We're gonna be talking to Livy.

So we're in the relationship series, and one of the things that I routinely hear from, like, young moms who get diagnosed and have kids is, like, their fear for their children.

What if I'm not here to raise them?

Like, what's this gonna be like for them?

And so I thought, you know, we're in this relationship series.

Wouldn't it be interesting to talk to somebody whose life was changed when they lost their mother at a very young age?

So we're gonna talk to Livy, but she lost her mom to breast cancer at a very young age.

I can't remember how old, so I want to ask her again, but she was raised by her grandparents, and she shares what it's like growing up without her mom, navigating questions about identity and family and belonging and what it's like to kind of carry a grief that evolves with every stage of life, because you have to imagine that it's not just a one and done.

It's like every time you hit a milestone, you're probably thinking, I wish my mom was here to see this.

Right.

Or be a part of this.

Yes.

And I think the part that women worry about is that cancer doesn't just affect the patient.

It affects the entire family, which is, like, generations of people.

Right.

So today we're going to talk to Livy about what it was like growing up without her mom.

We're going to talk to her also about navigating questions about identity, family, and belonging.

And what it's like carrying a grief that kind of evolves, like I said, with every stage.

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Well, welcome, Livy.

Thanks for being on with us.

So happy to be here.

Thanks, Beth.

Of course.

Of course.

So for context, everybody, Livvy and I work together on a work project, and she disclosed during that project that it really meant a lot to her to be working with faith through fire because she was personally impacted by breast cancer.

And.

And what it was is you lost your mom at a very young age, correct?

Yes.

How old were you when she.

When she passed?

So I was nine years old when my mom passed away.

And I have one younger sister, and she was seven.

Okay.

So that's a pretty impactful age to lose your mother.

And, I mean, you're both girls, so I feel like it's not that it's different, but it just.

It's a whole different dynamic.

Do you have a lot of memories of your mom before she got sick?

No, I have no memories of my mom before she got sick because she was diagnosed very shortly after she gave birth to my younger sister.

She actually developed breast cancer while she was pregnant, most likely, and when I was 2 is when she was diagnosed.

So you only knew her when she was in treatment?

Yes.

And there were a couple of spots throughout her those seven years where she was in remission.

And I remember those.

And having the awareness that she wasn't in the intensive treatment periods, that was very different times for me.

But I look back, and I don't recall remembering my mom without cancer.

That's so hard.

Yeah, that's.

That's really hard.

Do you have a lot of memories from your early childhood, or do you feel like some of.

Of that trauma has obscured some of those memories?

Like, how does that work?

Yeah.

So I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this, and the other piece of the puzzle that's.

That made things difficult was my mom was a single mom, so my dad left when I was quite young after she had been diagnosed with cancer.

And so we spent the majority of my childhood.

I was raised by my maternal Grandparents both while my mom was sick and also after she passed away.

And so I think for me, I grew up knewing my situation was very different from my peers with having a sick single parent.

In some ways, it was isolating in both ways to have a single mom and a sick single mom.

However, there were a lot of times I did still feel like a normal kid.

And I think my mother and her parents went to great lengths to enable normal activities, quote, unquote, for me, like being, you know, attending school very regularly, getting to participate in the activities I asked for, and leaning on our community to help activate that, whether it was soccer practice or something, something else.

So I, I will say though, in looking back, I don't.

The.

The memories I have of my mom and my sister and all of us together are mostly centered on her treatment.

How do, how do you think that affects you?

Just, you know, in terms of knowing that you didn't have this quote, unquote, normal experience as a child and then, you know, at such a young age, kind of maybe you didn't exactly know what was happening or what was going to happen, but that kind of causes the kid to have to pretty quickly.

I mean, I think just alone a single mother makes you grow up quicker, you know, more quickly, and then add that added layer of a sick parent.

And did you feel from a very young age that you like, was it heavier?

Did you feel like you were forced to grow up a little bit faster?

Did you feel a sense of responsibility towards your younger sister?

Or was it more, you know, every man for themselves?

Because it was just really hard.

I think that it instilled a sense of just like the lived experience of witnessing a journey that was very hard and painful in my mom and then also understanding the impacts it had on my family.

I know my grandparents were equally devastated by the loss of their daughter, as I was as the last of my mother.

And so I think the, the perspective that it gave me as the eldest daughter is yes, I felt responsible for my younger sister and making sure she had support and care from me.

I also was very focused on projecting a sense of, I'm okay, no one has to worry about me because we need to worry about my sister, we need to worry about my mom and like, bigger things in the world, but I'll be okay.

And so I think seeing and experiencing something that hard so early also made it difficult for me to relate as a child and young adult to other people who hadn't experienced something that difficult, but still experienced hardship, you know, in their own Mind.

So it took, it put a pretty rough experience exterior over myself that made it difficult to relate to others that I've worked on a lot in adulthood to, to peel that back.

Yeah.

It's interesting, the protective layers we put in place.

I think that would, if I had to guess, it's like part of that is just being the oldest.

Like, you feel this sense of, okay, I can handle everything on my own, and I don't need help, and I'm, I'm fine.

Everybody else, you know, focus elsewhere.

But you're right.

Like, when you put on that exterior, that tough exterior, it works until it doesn't.

And then at a certain point, you kind of realize, like, this is detrimental and you have to do all this work to undo that.

But it was all built out of survival.

And I can only imagine, because we see this with survivors today, right?

Especially sometimes those living with cancer who have to hear other people complain about what they deem superficial complaints.

Right.

Oh, I had to sit in traffic or, oh, you know, it rained on our vacation, or, oh.

And they're just like, really?

Because they have this perspective that these people don't have.

Right.

And their problems in their mind are real.

And yet when you've experienced some level of emotional suffering, it's tough to not be judgmental, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what did that look like?

You kind of had this tough outer shell and were telling everybody you were fine.

Did you have a moment where you realized that wasn't 100% true, or has it just been kind of a natural thing that you've been trying to work toward?

Like, was there a fallout moment, or was it more just, okay, as you got older, you realized that it wasn't healthy to just constantly be keeping people at bay.

So I, I, I think I was able to form really close relationships that I still have today.

It's difficult because, no, not many people outside of my sister and my uncle, who was my mom's brother, knew my mom or knew me at that time.

Both my grandparents have since passed.

And so I do have, like, a dissonance between who I was growing up and what it was like to go through that experience and who I am today and who knows me so deeply today, like my husband and my best friends.

So to directly answer your question, there was never a point where I felt like I had bottled up too much, and it just, it wasn't able to come out unless it was, like, a big moment.

However, I think I, once I started returning to therapy as a young adult, I started examining how you Know, judgmental and cynical I was towards other people.

And a lot of that comes out when I meet people, you know, and people know me as like a pretty harsh critic.

But at the same time, a lot of that is internalized.

And I was wondering what I was doing to myself being such a hard holding people to such, like, high standards, like, you have to go through something tragic to have, you know, real perspective in my mind.

And so letting go of that, but also validating my experience and who it made me has been a journey for sure.

Gosh, I feel like that's really wise, like you're coming to this conclusion really early.

I feel like, I mean, it took me.

I mean, I'm older than you, so maybe that's why I feel that way.

But I'm just sitting there thinking it took me forever to see that about myself, that my standards for people were unbearably high, you know, like there was only a handful of people that met him and anybody outside of that was just not in the inner circle.

And it was so limiting, you know, and lonely.

And so when you realize that and you're like, okay, this again.

I think you do it when, you know, trauma, trauma makes you kind of put these protective things in place and they do work for a period, but then when life changes, as it always does, it stops working and you have to find a new way to cope.

And hopefully as you mature and get older, it's a healthier way to cope.

So how was your sister through this whole situation?

Like, I kind of have a sense of how you were and how you coped and the responsibility you felt.

What about your sister, did she handle it the same way?

Because I can only speak from my own experience, but my sister and I completely handle things differently.

I'm curious if it's the same with your sister.

Yeah, yeah, it is like a real testament to like nature versus nurture.

So my sister, she.

We are very different and we're close today.

However, during our teenage years, we definitely drifted apart.

I think that I was extremely focused on caring for everyone around me, specifically my grandparents.

So when they adopted my sister and I, nine and seven year old girls, they were 72.

And.

So they were not young grandparents to be raising two little girls.

And I felt extremely attuned to that and I wanted to be the best possible kid for them to make it the easiest because I felt really grateful and genuinely, they did so much to make my sister and I's life really great.

However, Rachel and, and we've talked about this and she acknowledges this, she was, she was trying to cope with the loss of our mom and never knowing our father, which I did know him.

So she struggled with that.

And I think she felt she just was younger and so her focus on.

Was on her own survival and, and she didn't always, you know, she had a bit of a rebellious streak in her that I think, and she's doing wonderfully now, but it was just a different perspective.

This all affected us.

And I was really focused on, as I said, putting out an image that I'm okay even if I wasn't.

And she was not focused on that image.

And she, I would say, probably experienced her emotions much more in the moment and in more in raw form than I ever let myself.

Yeah, I totally relate to what you're saying.

My sister and I were the exact same way when we went through something difficult as kids.

I, you know, projected strength and kind of just did my own thing and was very independent and didn't want to, you know, my sister was the exact opposite.

And I think you're right.

It's.

It's how you, how you process emotions.

And I can look back in hindsight, at the time, I thought she was like, really like kind of causing problems and making things harder and just.

But you're right, there is a level of like acknowledging, wow, she was just feeling her true feelings as they were happening, whereas I was often repressing my feelings.

You know, well intentioned.

But it's so interesting to see how different family members handled the same situation.

It's just, I find it fascinating.

So you and your sister were not close during those moments, but then you guys got closer as you got.

How old were you guys when your grandparents passed?

So I was 14 when my grandfather passed away in ninth grade.

And then I was a freshman in college when my grandmother passed away.

So 18.

And that was another challenge because I was away at college and Rachel was still in high school and so she, she was home and with my grandmother in her dying moments and over the months that her health declined.

And I think that takes, I mean, I know you all talk about caregivers and the role that they play in sick and, and what that can, you know, how that can affect family dynamics and the caregivers themselves.

And my sister was put in a caregiver role unintentionally at a really young age.

She was 16.

So that was another layer of loss that I think was.

We both felt really even more so because we were at ages that we could really remember them.

What did she do?

Like Once your grandmother passed, you're in college, she's 16 years old.

Like, what happened next?

Because she's not legally able to care for herself right until she's 18.

Did you become her guardian?

How did that work?

So we do have.

My uncle was her guardian by,.

What is it, like, proxy?

Yeah, he was out of.

Out of necessity.

However, that's a complex relationship in our family, and so my sister had had close friends and family friends that she was able to live with until she.

And she ended up graduating high school a year early and going to college early.

And I think that was in part because she needed to find a stable place to be.

And luckily, she found that when she went to college.

Wow, that's interesting.

I want to kind of dive into.

Oh, gosh.

Just how losing your mom has continued to shape you guys, and just different things like that.

But before we do that, you guys want to do Boobs in the News?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right.

Boobs in the News is a fun segment where we read funny tweets by real people or ridiculous news stories.

Boobs.

In the news.

Bibs in the news.

Bibs in the news.

Are you ready for this?

Yes.

Bring it on.

So have you heard of Florida, man?

I didn't know what this.

No, I don't think so.

So, short story is, we went to the lake this last Saturday, and we're all hanging out in Mark Twain Lake, and somebody was telling a funny story of something that happened, and somebody was like, oh, let me guess.

It happened in Florida.

And they're like, haha, yeah, Florida, man.

And I'm like, what's Florida, man?

They're like, it's the joke that everything happens either over in Europe or in Florida.

Well, a lot.

Of our funny stories do happen in.

Florida.

Exactly.

In Florida or Europe.

So I was like, oh, I didn't know there was a saying for that, but that's so true.

Almost everything is either Florida or in Europe.

So this is in Florida.

It says, pizza for pythons.

Florida restaurant owner gives away free pies in exchange for dead snakes.

Ew.

Ew.

He gives away free pizza pies.

A Florida pizzeria owner is redefining the term exotic pet trade by accepting captured Burmese pythons as payment for a piece of what?

So I kind of remember.

I think pythons are a problem in Florida.

Like, I think some moron brought them into Florida and then they, like, took off, and now they're killing the ecosystem there.

Oh,.

I think.

I think, if I remember right, so it says, I'm the first place in the world to accept python as currency.

Dustin Crom, owner of Wild Man's Pizza Pasta and Python in Everglades City.

Oh, it's in his name.

And what does he do with the pythons?

Well, there's a picture of this chap with his python.

Oh, no.

Look how big they are.

Yeah, that is.

Isn't.

That terrifying?

Yeah, that is not for me.

What, what scares you more?

Like Florida alligators or pythons?

Like, what would scare you more?

I think a python.

I think a python.

I mean, an alligator I feel like I could get away from.

I mean, not that snakes, I don't know, they're just so long and, like,.

Constricting.

Yeah.

And like squiggly.

They could, like, pop out of.

Any head is enormous.

Not the man, the snake.

The self proclaimed swamperpreneur.

Oh, that's cute.

Reportedly was inspired by the ongoing Florida Python Challenge, where snake hunters from all over compete to see who can remove the most pythons from the everglades for a $10,000 prize.

Okay, so this is the thing.

They need these snakes out.

The tournament, which concludes on July 19, rolled out as a way to gamify the war on this destructive invader from Southeast Asia.

I knew that was what was going on.

Which has taken the Sunshine State by storm.

This is a hard story to read when you have braces.

A lot of S's.

Okay.

It says, what does a successful hunter do with a 16 foot, 200 pound dead constrictor?

Oh, okay.

Oh,.

So he wants them dead.

Oh, that makes sense.

Okay, but how are people.

Trading them?

Well, how are they getting them?

How are they, like, trapping them?

I don't know.

And killing them says you can trade in a python for a pizza.

I.

Would much rather just pay for the pizza.

I know.

The owner is a snake hunter himself who accepts and humanely dispatches animals in exchange.

How do you humanely dispatch them if you want them out of Florida?

Is he exporting them?

I don't know.

Is this like the thing where you have to, like, freeze it in the freezer?

Oh,.

God, I don't know.

Oh, I don't know.

It says he makes things out of the skins.

Yeah, I have.

That.

I use to make snake oils for skin.

For the skin cream, soap, the bones we make jewelry from.

Everything gets used.

Oh, gosh, I don't know.

He says he even adorns his pizza with python, like, python pepperoni.

Ew.

What?

I'm sorry, what?

It says, while he might seem like he's taking a Bite of the problem.

Waging war on these Asian invaders is an uphill battle.

So it says.

After first invading the everglades in the 1970s, the snake scourge has snowballed out of control, with experts estimating that there could be as many 300,000 of these guys slithering across the state.

So I kind of told you the story, I think, but, like, we rented ebikes in the Everglades and got to see a lot of alligators.

Not once did the tour guide tell us that pythons were a potential.

Threat.

Threat, that is.

I wonder if they're.

Maybe not in that area.

Maybe it's, like, based on,.

I don't know, the area.

So.

So do we think that this guy is a hero for trying to help the python issue, or do we think.

I mean, does this help his business?

I would think it would kind of hurt his business.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I would just rather pay for the pizza than go through this whole thing.

But at first I was like, okay.

At first I was like, this is weird.

And then I was like, okay, he's helping.

And then I feel like my opinions kind of changed again.

Cause it's kind of weird.

I don't like animal vermin being associated with my food.

Right.

The.

Pepperoni.

I wonder about the kitchen.

It elicits a lot of thoughts.

Right,.

You're right.

I think it could, like, now,.

Where are you making your snake jewelry and your soaps?

Right.

And what about the pepperoni?

Did he say?

I think it was, like, supposed to be, like, a spoof.

I don't think he's actually using, like, snake, you know, body.

See, no one knows this is the problem with the pizza.

Python.

Yeah.

Issue.

I think I would probably steer clear of that place.

So I.

Think this guy's trying to do a good thing.

I don't know if it's a great marketing strategy.

Yeah, I'm with you.

There's your boob.

Sees a boob.

Bibs and the knees.

Bibs and the knees.

Bibs and the knees.

Okay, so we're back.

I.

I think that the reason this story just.

I really wanted you to tell it from your perspective is because Jess and I were talking about this before you hopped on.

Whenever a young mom, and Jess and I both were, when we got diagnosed, gets diagnosed, our.

First thought is to our kids and the impact this is going to have on them.

And if the worst.

Happens and.

We pass from.

This disease, like, what's going to happen?

And.

It's.

Like, you know, for me personally, I got to this place where I was like, I can't handle that burden.

Cause it just felt crushing to think about that.

And so for me, it looked like handing my children off to God and saying, okay, they're not mine.

They're yours.

And I'm gonna trust you with them, even if I'm scared and I'm worried about their future.

But so many moms, when they get diagnosed, are just obsessed about what happens if something happens to me.

And their biggest fe is that their kids are not going to be okay in their absence.

And I think your story is just so interesting because you by no means had an easy road.

I mean, you had a single mom out of the.

Your dad wasn't involved.

You had this complicated relationship with your uncle.

Your grandparents were older.

I mean, it's everything that we all kind of wonder.

But what struck me about you, Livy, when I met you was just like, how wise and poised and, I don't know, thriving.

I mean, you just looked like somebody who had it all together, and you were doing really well.

And, you know, we had talked about, you know, this close group of friends that you have and your great marriage.

And I guess I really just wanted people to see that it's not easy.

But what does life look like today?

And how do you think that this experience has shaped you?

And what do you think?

I don't know if you want to have kids or not, but how do you think it's going to shape you as a mother?

I mean, those are, like, really big questions.

And I still think about went, you know, pretty consistently.

And thank you for the kind words.

It means a lot to me, and I think it is.

It was definitely.

I could feel as a child how concerned my mom was.

And so I think.

I think that I would encourage women who are.

Who are struggling with these feelings.

It's likely that your kids know that you're worried about them or that you want them to be successful, or that they can probably feel that level of care and attention happening and that I've never lost that feeling.

And so when my mom passed away, I never.

I think I held onto the idea that, you know, she didn't want to go.

There was no world in which she gave up.

It was a world that she was taken early.

And I was lucky to feel how much she loved me growing up.

I haven't completely made decisions about the future with kids, but one thing I do think a lot about is that.

And I shared this with you, Beth.

I spend a lot of my time in holidays with my best friend and her family.

I call her siblings, my siblings and her mom often refers to me as their, her fourth child.

And so I would think about how my kids would probably that would be a grandmother figure for them and she's a mother figure for me.

And something that I've thought a lot about is actually, you know, balancing the complexity of what family means and what chosen family looks like and not erasing the memory of my mother and my grandparents and what having that present in my future kids lives is something that is really important to me.

So it's a really hard question and I don't have a perfect answer.

But the, the thing I would underline, and I know it's getting a little long winded, but the thing I would underline is that I there's not a day that goes by that I don't feel loved and supported and centered in the life of like my mom and her parents.

I think that's going to be reassuring to a lot of the people that are listening that worry about their kids on a daily basis.

It's just so easy to sit there and go down that rabbit hole and think that if you're not here, they can't still find happiness, they can't find joy, they can't to your point, have a chosen family.

But all those things are still available to everybody at any given time and you know, we're all subject to loss.

And I think it's really powerful to know that, you know, your family of origin is incredibly important.

But you know, the definition of family really gets expanded when you experience something like that.

And I think that's comforting to a lot of us, that there will be people that step into your life that you wouldn't have imagined, would or needed to, but that there's people there no matter what.

So before we kind of sign off with your final words for those listening, let's hear from our second sponsor.

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Thank you, Libby for coming and sharing your story.

This is such a deep and real topic that I think every person that's diagnosed with breast cancer deals with when they have children and so hearing your story.

Sorry.

Is really touching.

So thank you for sharing.

When you like, think about your health now, do you think that your story with your mom going through breast cancer has like, shaped like how you view yourself and like how you live, like health and wellness, or does it just kind of go to the backside?

Oh, yes, absolutely.

I think that something, my grandfather was a doctor.

We grew up in a very academic, curious household and so it was communicated pretty early.

I knew at an early age that like my mother's experience with cancer was not common.

It wasn't one of those things where like, oh, sometimes people get cancer.

It was like, this is a more rare circumstance and it, it requires examination or should require some attention for her daughters.

So both my sister and I have done genetic testing.

Neither of us carry the BRCA gene or genes that have been associated directly with cancer.

However, because neither of us have been, you know, like have a genetic disposition that's been identified.

And Our mother was 36 when she was diagnosed.

We've both gotten direction to do, especially now, I'm 32, do annual screenings.

I have, am involved with a breast care center here in St. Louis that specializes in young, high risk women.

And so.

But I will say it took me so long to find that type of attention and care.

And I think navigating our health system is one of the most trying, difficult, frustrating experiences out of this whole entire process to just find, you know, somebody who didn't.

When I walked into, into the room and said, hey, I'd like to do some early risk screening and they say, you're too young.

Why would we do that?

Oh, okay.

Your, your mom passed.

Do you know if she had the BRCA gene?

Well, no, I don't know.

It was in 2003.

So things like that where I felt like I was constantly sucking, like question for my pursuit of finding answers for myself to live as long as I can, even if I do get breast cancer, has been dissuaded by the healthcare industry.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that preventative care is the big buzzword now, you know, and there's a lot of debate right now, especially with young women wanting to get screened earlier, like, oh, is the radiation worth the risk and all that.

And it goes back and forth, back and forth.

But when you've had like your mom die at a very early age, I mean, I do think it's interesting that we put all this emphasis on preventative care.

But then when you go to pursue that preventative care, you're met with resistance and questions it's so to your point.

It's frustrating.

Right.

You know, it's like our.

But again, I always think there's that disconnect between what's on paper and what people's lived experiences.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, women our age don't get breast cancer.

That's kind of the.

That was supposed to be the norm.

And yet young women are getting diagnosed more and more.

More and more.

Yeah.

And while pregnant, you know, or postpartum.

I mean, my youngest was.

Hadn't even turned one.

And I'm sure I had breast cancer when I was pregnant with her.

Yeah, I can imagine that advocating for yourself and trying to be preventative in your care and proactive has been journey, to say the least.

But I'm glad you asked about that, Jess, because I think that's what a lot of people would want to know.

Like, when you lose somebody in your family that young, you know, how does that impact your view of health and what you want for yourself?

Interesting.

Any.

Any final words before we sign off?

We really appreciate you sharing your story.

Yeah, absolutely.

And.

And I love the work that Faith Through Fire does with that, your work on Beth, and that you bring this topic to the forefront of people and create community for women experiencing breast cancer in their families.

I would say that the only other in reflecting on my childhood and what that experience was like, the only other thing I would call out is I think things would have been a lot different for both.

For my mom, for me and my sister if we had a community or access to a community of families experiencing something similar.

We did not.

And I didn't know anybody until I got much older who lost their mom to breast cancer.

And of course, I'm this.

My story is not solely unique.

And so I think what you all do in trying to connect people and also families to this really difficult experience that is almost impossible to tell someone about if they haven't lived.

It is so important and maximizes people's opportunities to connect and enjoy life even during something really hard.

Well, thank you so much, Libby, for being here and for sharing your story.

Until next time, guys.

See ya.

Thank you for being a listener of the Besties with Breasties podcast.

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