Dear Daughters,

It was the third week.

The first week, I was distracted — doctors appointments, tests, the blur of being told your body has turned on itself. The second week was my first chemo, and everything that comes with that.

By the third week, the noise had quieted. And I was just lying in my bed, looking out the window.

A neighbour drove by. Just going somewhere. Nowhere important, probably. Groceries. The dry cleaner. I don’t know. But I watched that car move down the street and something cracked open in my chest.

The world is moving on.

Everyone is moving on with their lives. Kids at school. People at work. Meetings happening. Problems being solved. And I’m here, in this bed, in this stillness, and nobody needs anything from me.

Nobody is calling.

Nobody needs anything.

Nothing fell apart without me.

✦ ✦ ✦

I want you to understand who I was before that window, before that neighbour drove by, before any of this.

On a normal Tuesday, I would wake up already behind. Already stressed. My brain would start cataloguing everything I had to do before my eyes were fully open. I would rush to get ready. Rush to get you girls dropped off. Rush to my first meeting — because I hate being late, so I rushed everywhere, always.

Back to back meetings all day. A working lunch. Rush to pick you up. Figure out dinner. Drive to activities. Wait. Drive home. Get everyone to bed. Check emails again. Lie in the dark and worry about the big presentation, the upcoming meeting, the thing I might have forgotten.

Always thinking ahead. Always preparing. Always performing.

I was important. People came to me with problems. They needed my guidance, my decisions, my read on things. I had built something — a reputation, a team, relationships. I was good at it. I knew I was good at it.

And I needed to be needed in a way I didn’t fully understand yet.

✦ ✦ ✦

The silence was the hardest part.

Not the chemo. Not the fear. The silence.

I had made real friendships at work — or at least I thought I had. Some of them went quiet too. Later, a few told me they were giving me space to heal. I understand that now. But at the time, watching LinkedIn from my bed — seeing posts, seeing people carry on, seeing the world continue its spin without a single wobble — it broke something in me.

I guess everyone is a dime a dozen. I’m not that special.

I remember thinking that. Clearly. In those exact words.

All that I had built up — the reputation, the relationships, the identity — it was nothing. It was a performance. And the show had gone on without me before the curtain even finished falling.

✦ ✦ ✦

Here’s what I haven’t said out loud until now.

I was so burned out before the diagnosis. So deeply, totally exhausted — not just physically but mentally, energetically. I was pushing a boulder up a hill that was never aligned with who I actually wanted to be.

And I remember thinking — more than once — wouldn’t it be nice to be hospitalized for a week? Just to sleep. Just to stop. Just to have a reason to put it all down.

I know how that sounds. But I think some of you know exactly what I mean.

I had spent years telling myself I wasn’t a writer. That it was a foolish thought. That I should be grateful for the career I had built and stop daydreaming. I had a vision — writing in cozy coffee shops, by the ocean, wherever I travelled — and I talked myself out of it so many times it started to feel like someone else’s dream.

In some ways, I think I manifested this.

I needed the excuse of being sick to change it all. And I’ve sat with that long enough to say it clearly: I’m not sure why we need an excuse. A person can change their mind about their life at any time. We should support that as people, as a society. But I was so afraid of judgement — of being seen as someone who walked away from a good thing for no good reason — that I needed cancer to give me permission.

That’s the part that took the longest to heal.

Subscribe now

So here’s what I want you both to know.

Your worth is not your title. It is not your output, your usefulness, your productivity, or how many people need you on a given Tuesday. I know that sounds simple. I know you’ve heard it before. But I need you to hear it from me — someone who had to lose everything she thought she was to finally understand it.

The silence after my diagnosis was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. And it was also the first honest thing I had felt in years.

Because when nobody needs anything from you, and the world keeps spinning, and you’re left alone in the quiet with just yourself —

that’s when you finally find out who you actually are.

I was not a dime a dozen. I was someone who had never given herself permission to find out what she was worth outside of what she produced.

There’s a difference.

I hope you never need an excuse to become who you actually are.

But if you do — I’ll be right here.

Love, Mom.

Dear Daughters,

I’ve always lived with anxiety — I just never labeled it. I assumed everyone worried that much.

I recently read a blog that a woman wrote about her anxiety, and she described me fully. While on a beach, enjoying life, she was mentally bracing for catastrophe - a car crash or someone drowning. Always thinking every scenario through, as if that could somehow save her from those things happening. I read it and thought — oh. That’s me.

I worry about you girls a lot, but I also spiral down rabbit holes imagining the worst-case scenario for everything. Planes, kidnappings, someone breaking into the house, a house fire, and I can’t get everyone out safely, choking — it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, my brain will find the darkest version of it. What I don’t talk about enough is how exhausting that is. Carrying all of that quietly, all the time, is a weight most people can’t see from the outside.

Thankfully, it hasn’t stopped me from living. I’ve travelled so much, and I love doing it. I’ve gotten myself through it by believing it’s out of my control — if it’s my time to go, then so it is. But I can also look back now at the anxiety and know it’s why I drank so much. I used to love a glass of wine to “unwind.” But then COVID came, and the stress and anxiety of the world were too much.

The wine spilled over from the weekend into the weekdays. I’d pour a glass just to feel my shoulders drop, just to quiet the noise for an hour. I don’t shame myself for it — it was a weird and genuinely hard time to live through — but I recognized the pattern and knew I had to change it.

I’ve been on anti-anxiety medication, especially when you girls were younger. But over time, I felt like I couldn’t feel any emotion. I wasn’t happy, sad, or mad. I just was. And I didn’t want that either.

I started meditating after I had postpartum depression. It was a lifesaver. I loved those moments of peace. But as soon as it was over, the anxiety flooded back in. I didn’t fully know how to carry that peaceful feeling into everyday life. It helped with awareness, but I was still a walking, vibrating, wound-up person on the inside. Then I started doing energy healings, and that helped too. But I kept wanting to do one session and be done with it. That’s not how it works, though. Working through something larger is like peeling an onion — there are layers, and they’re all connected.

It wasn’t until I started training in energy healing that something really shifted. Part of the training was to pick one thing and focus on it for 30 days. I did a healing on myself every 2–3 days and stayed with the wound. I wrote in my notes to my teacher that by the end of those 30 days, I felt like the motor that had been constantly humming in my ear had finally turned off.

Like I could finally exhale.

I still catch myself making up stories in my head, but way less — and I catch them early and kind of giggle at myself. Old habits die hard. But I also take note of what the worry is about, because the worry will always show you what needs to be healed.

I guess what I want you both to know is this: feeling stressed, anxious, and wound up 24/7 isn’t normal, and it isn’t something you just have to live with. It took me a long time to believe that. There is always something that can help — whether that’s medication, therapy, talking to a friend, energy healing, or something else entirely. You don’t have to know everything or do it all on your own. Ask for help. You deserve to feel at peace in your own mind.

Love, Mom.

Dear Daughters,

I remember the morning I had to tell you about my diagnosis. I was so sad for you. It was a Friday, and you were both home from school. The day before, you had a tobogganing accident and ran into a tree; her face was all bruised and swollen. I decided to keep you both home rather than just her because I knew my surgeon was calling with results.

Two months earlier, I felt a lump. I knew in my gut right away what it was; I almost felt relief: “ok, it’s here, it’s happening.” I guess I must have subconsciously expected that I would get it at some point in my life, don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.

I put off calling the doctor for a couple of weeks, knowing deep down what it was but still hoping it was just a cyst that would go away. I remember your aunt coming into town and visiting for a weekend. After a couple of glasses of wine, I mentioned it to her; she felt it and made me promise I would call the doctor the next week. She had lost a friend to cancer a few years earlier, and she gave me the reality check that I needed to make the call.

The following few weeks were doctor visits, mammograms, and ultrasounds. One of the reports said it was a 95-98% chance it was cancer, but a biopsy was needed to be definitive and to help determine the type of cancer. So that Friday morning, I knew it was cancer; I was just waiting to hear the final diagnosis.

I didn’t want to take the call from my surgeon at home. I didn’t want you to overhear anything, and I wanted time to cry without you seeing. Dad and I told you we had a meeting with our financial advisor and we’d be home in an hour. We drove over to the parking lot of a large insurance company that is only a few blocks away. We sat and waited for my cell phone to ring.

When the call came, I heard my surgeon say, “The results are in, you have triple negative breast cancer. Because of the type of breast cancer, your treatment will start with chemotherapy before surgery. I’ve made the referral to the oncology unit, and you’ll be hearing from your doctor within a few days.” She was very polite, kind, but matter-of-fact.

We hung up, and we both cried. We talked about how we would tell you. I was sadder for the two of you than for myself. I knew at 10 and 12 that you were about to lose your childhood innocence. You would go from giggling while dancing and making TikToks to fearing the death of your mother. I cried hard for you. I thought about not telling you, wondered if I could do this without the world knowing. I knew it would eventually come out, though, and I would need the strength to be there for you, to talk you through it before I got sick. I would need our community to wrap their arms around you two and Dad to support you.

We decided, since you were both home from school and it was a Friday, we would go home and tell you. That would allow us time to cry together, answer your questions, and snuggle all we needed to.

I’ll never forget your faces crumpling as I told you. “Girls, Mom and Dad need to tell you something. I have breast cancer, but I’m going to be ok.” Childhood innocence, gone in that second, gone forever. We cried, we snuggled. I told you that I had caught the cancer early and I had to do treatment, but I was going to be ok.

Later that evening, you asked, “Mom, are you going to die?” It killed me, but I was so happy you felt okay asking that. You shared with me that all you really knew about cancer was the Terry Fox run from school, and he died. My friend Cheri also died. You were so scared. Just as I knew that it was cancer when I felt the lump, in that instant, I knew I wasn’t going to die. It wasn’t an option for me. You were too young to lose your mom, and I panicked that I had not taught you enough about life. I haven’t shared some of the bigger lessons I’ve learned or my opinions. Dying wasn’t an option. I would get through it all, show you how strong we are, and share all that I knew with you.

That is why this Substack exists. To share with you everything I know, so far.

I love you so much,

Love, Mom.