Real Families. Real Grace

In 2020, the COVID lockdown saved my life in more ways than one. It forced me to finally make a decision I'd known I needed to make for years: leave an emotionally abusive relationship. I planned a trip to get away with a friend — then COVID sent me home from the airport after a positive test.

My headaches kept getting worse. I ended up in the ED and learned I had four tumors in my brain. "If you had gotten on that plane, you would have died when you hit altitude," the doctor told me. "COVID saved your life." I had Stage IV melanoma.

The four years that followed were the hardest of my life. A divorce that should have been simple turned into a four-year court battle that drained me emotionally, mentally, financially, and physically. I had my first craniotomy the night I went to the ED, then spent months in the hospital after a severe reaction to treatment. Three more craniotomies followed, plus six more surgeries, radiation, chemo, and clinical trial after clinical trial. I lived in hospitals for weeks at a time — trying to survive cancer and finalize a divorce while raising my boys alone, unable to work.

In mid-2026, my cancer continued to metastasize despite the drugs I was taking to control it. I lost my health insurance, and my life felt completely out of control. I had medical bills I couldn't pay and credit cards that were maxed out. One of those bills was for the imaging center — and I couldn't get the scans I needed to know what my cancer was doing until it was paid. I wasn't working. There was no version of my life where I could make that bill disappear on my own.

A dear friend submitted my name to Mother's Grace, asking for help on my behalf. I was told someone would be reaching out to talk about my needs, and I braced myself for what I assumed would be a slow process — weeks of waiting, maybe more paperwork than answers. Instead, two days later, on a Sunday evening, my phone rang. It was Michelle.

She listened to my whole story. Not the short version — all of it. And then she offered to pay two of my bills, including the one standing between me and my scans, plus part of my credit card debt. I still don't know how to describe what that felt like. Somewhere in the middle of the worst year of my life, a stranger gave up part of her Sunday evening to make sure I could see clearly what my cancer was doing — and to lift some of the weight I'd been carrying alone. It was another miracle in my journey, and one I don't take lightly.

My boys keep me fighting, and we finally have peace in our home. I'm still here. My boys are still here with me. And I am in love with this life I fought so hard to keep — a life Mother's Grace helped make possible to keep fighting for.