I’m Kellie — a mother, a woman of faith, a breast cancer survivor, and a woman who has learned more than once what it means to keep going when life doesn’t go according to plan. Long before cancer, life had already asked me to survive some things I never thought I could. In 2007, I lost my oldest daughter’s father to violence. In 2009, I lost both of my grandparents on my father’s side. In 2010, I lost the father of my second child, also to violence, and in 2011, I lost my grandmother on my mother’s side to cancer. I was grieving, raising my children, trying to go to school, working, and simply trying to figure out how to keep life moving forward.

Eventually, I left college and chose my career because I needed to provide for my children. Their fathers were gone, and whether I felt ready or not, life still required me to show up. So I did. I worked hard, earned promotions, built a career, and became really good at figuring things out. I also became the person people called when someone else needed help. When another woman lost someone to violence, I understood. I volunteered with nonprofits, helped people develop their ideas and brands, and poured into other people’s visions. I even started a nonprofit of my own at one point, but like many of my own dreams, I never fully followed through with it. I could see the vision for everybody else so clearly, but when it came to my own, fear always seemed to have something to say.

Over time, life became comfortable. I returned to church, grew closer to God, and finally felt like I had found some steady ground. Then, in 2025, I received a phone call that changed my life. I had breast cancer. The call confirming my diagnosis came on the same day as my 20-year high school reunion — and that night, I still went. I showed up again the next day too. Somewhere in that moment I realized something had changed in me. Every other tragedy in my life had made me wonder, How am I going to get through this? But this time, although I didn’t know what was ahead, I knew I wasn’t walking into it alone.

I was diagnosed with Stage III, Grade 3 triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive diagnosis that required aggressive treatment. I prayed and told God that whatever He was trying to show me in this season, I wanted to see it. Whatever He was asking of me, I would obey. I educated myself, asked questions, listened to the experiences of others, and learned to trust the discernment God had given me. When something didn’t feel right, I pivoted. Along the way, He placed people in my path who made me feel cared for, heard, and protected. Even finding out that my breast surgeon was a First Lady felt like one of those little reminders that God had gone before me and was already in the details.

Cancer taught me that fighting the disease is only part of the fight. There are appointments, scans, medications, insurance approvals and denials, FMLA, disability paperwork, medical bills, prescriptions, and decisions that have to be made while you are still trying to understand what is happening to your body. And regular life doesn’t stop. The mortgage is still due. The lights still have to stay on. Your children still need you. There are days when you don’t recognize yourself, when treatment changes your body and pieces of your identity feel like they are disappearing. But I was surrounded by people who reminded me that I was still Kellie. My mother showed up tremendously. Friends poured into me, prayed with me, checked on me, and reminded me that I was still beautiful. And my care team showed up day after day, creating a sense of safety during one of the most uncertain seasons of my life.

Somewhere in that journey, I knew that when I reached the other side, I wanted to give something back. I wanted to honor the people who had cared for me and create something for women who understood what it felt like for life to revolve around treatment, appointments, paperwork, bills, and simply getting through the day. I wanted people to have a moment where they didn’t have to think about any of it — where they could simply experience joy, community, generosity, and being cared for. I didn’t know exactly what it would become yet. I just knew I wanted to pour back into people the way so many had poured into me.

But cancer also revealed something much deeper. For years, I thought my story was simply a collection of hard things I had survived. Now I can see how every season was shaping something in me. Losing people taught me compassion. Motherhood taught me responsibility. Grief taught me how to sit beside someone without needing to fix them. My career taught me how to execute. Helping others taught me how to see a vision and bring it to life. Cancer deepened my faith, sharpened my discernment, and finally made me realize that the same woman who had spent years believing in everyone else’s ideas had to start believing in what God placed inside of her too.

I used to think I needed to be completely ready before I could begin. I thought I needed the perfect plan, the perfect timing, and enough confidence to know that whatever I created would succeed. Now I understand obedience differently. Sometimes God gives you enough light for one step, and you take it. Then He gives you enough for another. My life isn’t a story about breast cancer. Cancer is one chapter of a much bigger testimony. My story is about a woman who has experienced loss, grief, motherhood, fear, faith, love, survival, healing, and becoming — and who finally realized she doesn’t have to hide the woman all of those experiences created.

I spent a lot of my life surviving. Now, I’m choosing to live, create, give, build, and be seen. I don’t know exactly what every chapter after this will look like, but for the first time, I don’t need to. I know Who is writing it. And this time, I’m not hiding.