Our Mother’s Legacy: One Life, Two Sisters, and the Love that Lives On

Grief doesn’t move in straight lines. It loops through childhood memories, old fears, laughter, and the moments we wish we could relive just one more time.

In this deeply personal episode, sisters Kellie and Erin open the door to their mother Marsha’s remarkable life — a story of love, courage, and three cancer journeys that changed everything.

Marsha was bold, brilliant, and stubbornly loving. She faced breast cancer three times with humor, style, and an unshakable will to live. Along the way, she raised two daughters who would one day discover the greatest gift she ever gave them wasn’t found in “The Boxes” she left behind — it was in each other.

Through laughter, reflection, and tears, Kellie and Erin share:

• What it was like growing up through 12 years of their mom’s cancer battles
• How grief shaped them differently and how they found their way back to one another
• The story behind The Boxes and how Marsha’s legacy continues to arrive on time
• The life lessons she left behind — strength, grace, and living with purpose

This episode is for anyone who’s lost someone they love — and for everyone learning to carry their story forward with gratitude.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Our Mother’s Legacy
• 2:15 Marsha’s Story: Courage, Humor & Radiance
• 8:42 Growing Up Through Cancer
• 15:00 Lessons in Grace and Grit
• 21:30 The Boxes She Left Behind
• 28:10 Grieving Apart, Finding Each Other
• 34:55 Carrying the Legacy Forward
• 40:30 Purpose, Intention, and Gratitude

Transcript

The Sisters: 0:04

October is breast cancer awareness month. And for us, that means so much more than pink ribbons and mammograms. It's about honoring the woman who gave us life, our mom, Marsha, and the three cancer journeys she walked with bravery, courage, beauty, moments of humor, and an unshakable will to live. Our childhood and our adulthood were both shaped by her story. 12 years of treatments, remissions, and resilience. She faced fear head on, even as she prepared for the life that would continue for others after she was gone. And the quiet heartbreak of knowing that one day we'd have to carry her memory forward. Today, we're reflecting on her legacy, leadership, and the lessons she taught us about strength and grace and what it's meant to live without her for over three decades. We'll share memories as kids, as women, how we've grown through grief, and the countless ways she's still here and still guiding from beyond. So whether you've been touched by or diagnosed with breast or any cancer, or know someone who has, this conversation is for you. A reminder that every story of loss is also a story of life, love, and legacy. Welcome to the PIG, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude. I'm Kellie. And I'm Erin. We're sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life, love, and legacy of the woman whose unwavering love still lingers. Our mother, Marsha.

Erin: 1:52

I think this is so fun because it is breast cancer awareness month. And taking the time to remember and honor mom and sit down and reflect, just the two of us, on our journey on and off the podcast, and to be able to tie all of it together, hopefully with a pretty bow on top, because mom would like that. It's just so cool because her journey with her own cancer diagnoses did shape our childhood and it has shaped our adulthood as we've learned to live without her and navigate life without her. And who knows what our lives would look like and how things would have unfolded if she was here guiding and directing us live and in person. But you and I talk all the time about how she's still guiding and directing us just from beyond in our lives, but that looks so different. And as we have launched this project with Chris and working on the boxes, you and I have had so many conversations about our life and our upbringing. And when we started working with Chris, and he started asking us questions about mom and us and our upbringing and our childhood, and the more that he learned, the more questions he's asked. And the reality is that you and I started having conversations that we've never had before and putting words to thoughts and feelings and behaviors that I just don't really think that we had even acknowledged. So it's been a really beautiful experience. It's been a really beautiful gift. And I think that I can speak for both of us when I say that it was having these conversations and realizing through that that you and I experienced the same loss of the same person in our lives. We experienced the loss of our mom in two wildly different ways. But I was 17 and you were 24. So we were at very different places in our life when we lost her. And I think we've always known that and we've had some conversation about that, but not to the extent that we have over the last year of working on the boxes project with Chris, which who knows what that's going to end up becoming, right? But we started having conversations that we've never had before, and we made a promise to each other that we would be very raw and real and authentic, and that nothing was off the table, that we could literally talk about anything and everything. And so we've come at that with this incredible approach, which I really appreciate. And I think that what started happening, at least for me, was we started acknowledging the fact that if the two of us experienced the same loss of the same person in our lives in two extremely different ways, and that it really helped shape the rest of our lives, just imagine how differently every single human being experiences every single loss in a unique way because we are all so unique. There is not anybody on this planet that is living your life and experiencing your day-to-day with your emotions and your comings and goings. I mean, everybody's life is so uniquely yours. And so I think it's very unfair for us to assume that any life experience is actually the same for anybody. And then when we take that into a conversation about loss and grief, then I think that it's fair to say that every single human has a very different grief experience. And then that led into you and I having conversations about, as a culture, we tend to talk about loss and grief in terms of death, but there's so many other forms of loss: loss of careers, loss of relationships, loss of identity, loss of finances, loss of limbs. And we've had guests on and we've had conversations about other kinds of loss. I just feel like I'm excited to have a conversation, acknowledging kind of where we've been and some of the conversations that we've had, an acknowledgement of our differences and uniqueness. And now taking that into a conversation, reflecting back on wherever this conversation leads us, quite honestly, today. Um, because we do map out a lot of what we talk about. And today we just felt like we really needed to have a heart-to-heart sister chat and reflect especially on our relationship with mom in light of the fact that it is October and it is breast cancer awareness month. And breast cancer really deeply impacted our family. And we are not alone. And I think we have a lot of listeners who have been impacted by cancer of all kinds, um, either personally or with somebody that they know. And so I just really feel like this is a very relevant conversation to have, and I'm excited to have it with you.

Kellie: 7:39

Well, I am looking forward to this as well. I was sharing with Marcus last night that every single one of us on the face of the planet are living, breathing snowflakes. I love that. And that's just to reiterate what you already said that not one of us is alike, and that kind of made me all warm and fuzzy inside, which is one of my favorite memories of mom, by the way. Warm fuzzies, cold pricklies. Do you remember that book?

Erin: 8:05

I do remember that book. What was it called?

Kellie: 8:08

Warm Fuzzies Cold Pricklies.

Erin: 8:10

But that wasn't the name of the book.

Kellie: 8:12

I'm pretty sure it is. We'll have to Google it.

Erin: 8:16

We have to look it up and then link it if it is. But warm fuzzies and cold pricklies. I remember that well.

Kellie: 8:22

Yeah, that was such a staple in our childhood, but it gave me warm fuzzies to think about every single human being on the face of the planet being a living, breathing snowflake because mom's favorite holiday was Christmas. And so that, you know, that kind of plays into the conversation as well. But you're right. We not only experienced our childhood very differently, we experienced grief very differently. And one of the things we're going to talk about a lot today, I know, is this role of caretaker that Kellie took on from a very, very early age. And I think part of that was being born and raised a farm and ranch kid and having chores every single day and raising animals and doing 4-H and all the things that come along with being a farm and ranch kid. And so you you kind of are a caretaker in a lot of ways of yourself when you live that life, and then of all the animals, right, that you're caring for and raising and nurturing and populating into the world when you grow up in that kind of world, which is so magical. I just have such incredible memories of the 1970s. And we've shared on this podcast that part of the joy of the 1970s was being a lonely, only child and desperately wanting a little sister. And seven years passed and that dream came true. I've shared, I was that kid. I got a pony for Christmas when I was six and a half because my half birthday is December 25th, Christmas Day, and a little sister that summer. And I've always cherished that. And so as we began to navigate life differently in the 1980s, because that's when the divorce happened, we moved away from the farm. We had less time on the farm and at the ranch, even though our grandparents played a really instrumental role in our upbringing and caring for us, because we did have a disjointed family and a father who chose and elected not to really participate in our lives from then moving forward. And they knew how important it was to step in and be a part of that and maintained a very beautiful and close relationship with mom, especially during the years of her cancer diagnoses and treatments. And it was a 12-year journey. So I think today, maybe a really great place for us to start is just right at the very beginning. So we can talk about how we grew up a little bit differently and yet the same. And then how we navigated those cancer experiences with her, with each other differently, but the same. And I think that that leads right into the reality that yes, when she took flight on Angel's Wings, September 12th, 1994. So we have September and October back to back. This fall is a big, meaningful, and important time for you and I. And it's been 31 years since we last looked into her eyes, held her hand, heard her voice, gave each other a hug. You know, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around how long it's actually been.

Erin: 12:05

Yeah.

Kellie: 12:06

And as human beings, Erin, I think that we at least I'm gonna speak for myself. I don't think that 10 years is really all that long. Track a child from zero to 10 and 10 to 20, and you realize how long 10 years actually is and how much change the human body, human spirit, human intellect, human emotions, human physicality, everything goes through in 10 years. So I think back over the last 31 years, and there is no doubt as well that mom played a very, very instrumental role. I'm absolutely confident of this in mending our disconnect because I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again. I think she called bullshit from beyond and said, enough, you two. You are pretending to be sisters, but you're not really being sisters. And I think that for me, that was the greatest realization through launching this project with Chris in the boxes. It has been full of unpacking boxes, unpacking pictures, unpacking journals, unpacking letters, unpacking memories, unpacking history. But more than that, it's been unpacking and rewinding our relationship back to a place where we could say, that was the beginning, that was always who we are, and that is truly who we want to be, and we're gonna commit to being that. And we want to be an inspiration for other sisters, other siblings, other family members to have that same experience. And so we actually know how to do this. Like we're becoming experts in how to do this without being experts in anything. Yeah. But there is some magic that can absolutely unfold through dialogue and discussion and conversation and recognizing differences and instead of discounting them, minimizing them, or making them bigger than they are, actually celebrating them. Yeah. And so we'll get to more of that later in the episode because we have some really exciting things coming up that we're going to talk about that have really helped us navigate that together. But I think we start back at the 80s when we were the three little pigs.

Erin: 14:38

We were the three little pigs, and it's such a great place to start. And one of the things that I was thinking about as you were talking, and we've reflected on this quite a bit over the last year of this project, but the reality is, with a seven-year age difference, you really grew up a farm kid.

Kellie: 14:59

I did.

Erin: 15:00

And you lived on that farm for seven years more than I did, and had so many experiences. And so, yes, just like the chores and the caretaking of animals, that was so deeply ingrained in you and was just part of who you were and what you did day in and day out. Whereas I was so young that, and I only lived on the farm for a few years, I have very few memories of life on the farm. And a lot of that I feel a lot of my quote unquote memories are things I've been told or things that I've seen in pictures. So I knew I had this moment, you know, but I I do remember bottle feeding lambs, and I do remember, you know, a handful of experiences climbing the mountain of onions and and picking apples. And I there are things that I remember, but those are some of my earliest memories, and they're very faint memories for me. Whereas you carry so much deep inside of you of that time in our lives. And so just from the get-go, we had very different experiences during the first, let's say, 10 years of our life, right? Your first 10 years, because you just referenced the 10-year time frame, right? Your first 10 years were spent on that farm.

Kellie: 16:41

Yeah.

Erin: 16:41

And at the ranch. And my first 10 years were split between two lives and two different families, so to speak. So we can dive in and start dissecting that.

Kellie: 16:56

Yeah, and that's actually a big part of what we've had to unpack through this process. And, you know, it's interesting because we launched this podcast on the heels of the boxes project. And man, the recordings that we've had with Chris go really, really deep in so many ways on so many levels. It's fun to be raw, real, authentic, and vulnerable in front of an audience. And, you know, part of the 80s was mom's involvement in radio, but that goes back to the 70s as well, because she was really into telecommunications. In fact, that earliest radio show she had on KPRN Public Radio, 89.5 Grand Junction, that radio show that they had at that time, "Mind Over Chatter."

Erin: 17:50

Yep.

Kellie: 17:51

She would love, and I have no doubt is sitting right here with us today, celebrating the fact that we are doing this and we are opening the door into our lives, not for any other reason than this is a continuation and a very important part of our healing journey, but also like I shared earlier, in hopes that we can help others navigate the difficulties and complexities that come from living a very difficult and complex life. And I think as you described the difference between how we were raised being seven years apart and how little time you spent on the farm and ranch in those early years, and how much time I did is a clear example of the beginning of the difficulty and the complexity. And that was just the first decade. We have five decades. Right. Yeah. And we're not alone. Every single human being on the face of the planet is born into a family. They are born to parents that they may or may not know. And part of our life story includes adoption, but it includes adoption at the ages of 11 and 19, right? Not when we were babies. So we also honor and respect that. And we've got some fun guest episodes that are going to come up on that very topic. But once we've moved into the 80s after the divorce, that's when things got really complicated. And again, there are a lot of people who navigate that reality. Yeah. There's a lot of people who navigate the loss of individuals that they love through death, but also through the loss of health. So everything that we have navigated or been forced to experience because some of it's been out of our control, a lot of it's been in our control. It's not that we are alone in this. And I think that that is important to state and important to keep in mind. But I hope that people find value, meaning, and nuggets of wisdom and insight, and just even one thing that they can grab a hold of and say, I relate to that. That makes sense to me. I wish I could do that differently. If I could go back, or how can I start doing things differently, moving forward from here, or mending fences?

Erin: 20:33

I love it. Well, it ties back to hearing the stories of others, helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. And that is something that has basically become our mantra on this podcast.

Kellie: 20:48

Yes.

Erin: 20:48

And it is why we do what we do and continues to drive us forward. And so I think everything that you said so beautifully ties back to that. And that my hope, echoing those thoughts, is that yeah, somebody will hear our story. And it's not going to be their story, but there may be elements of it. There may be pieces of it that somebody can relate to. And if hearing our story helps somebody create a more meaningful connection to their own in any way, shape, or form, that fires me up. Yeah, that brings me joy.

Kellie: 22:15

Yeah. So, let's start the 80s with the pigs.

Erin: 22:16

Okay, that's perfect.

Kellie: 22:18

Let's talk about the pigs right up front. Yeah. Because I think that the pigs is how we got to The P.I.G. And so I think sharing a little bit about how did we even name this podcast? We've talked about it on several other episodes, so our loyal listeners already know the story. But the new ones do not. So let's talk a little bit about pigs and The P.I.G. and mom and all of her pigs from day one that both you and I came into the world.

Erin: 22:52

Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't ever remember a moment of my life where we were not surrounded by all things pigs. Mom collected pigs. She had pig-themed everything. And it was so fun. And so I just I can't see a pig, a picture, a meme, a anything that involves a pig, and not think of her. You know, we found out later, at least I did, I mean, really fairly recently, that she was actually born in the Year of the Pig, which there is not a more perfect sign that that woman could have been born under. But yes, she collected pigs and we were surrounded by all things pigs. And so when we set out to start this project, we played around with so many different names and things that we wanted to do. But the reality is this project, The Boxes Project with Chris and this podcast stemmed from this legacy project that we were working on and in her honor and highlighting her life and the way she lived and the legacy that she left and all of the things. And so it made so much sense for us to incorporate pigs somehow into this. But we didn't want to call it the pig podcast, even though I know some people refer to it that way because it's just how it's read.

Kellie: 24:33

There's dashes, people, between the I and the G. It's not the pig podcast, it's the P I G.

Erin: 24:40

But then you and I had so much fun running with that. And I think back on our the list of P words, I words, and G words that we have that I know we will continue to have so much fun with as we build and grow and interview guests. And it really was fun to settle on the PIG and to really put words and that vocabulary of purpose, intention, and gratitude for us as an anchor that really drives what we do and what we want to be about. And there are so many other words that we reference all the time, and we could have, I mean, purpose, intention, and gratitude has just kind of stuck with us.

Kellie: 25:32

And it's certainly our mission.

Erin: 25:34

Yeah.

Kellie: 25:34

Right. But also, Erin, it is absolutely reflective of how mom lived her life.

Erin: 25:40

Yes.

Kellie: 25:40

She lived it with purpose, she lived with intention, and she lived in and with gratitude. And when I think back to the 24 years that I got to spend with her, that I remember from those earliest memories, and the 17 years that you did, I think I speak for both of us when I say unequivocally, those three words represent exactly who she was.

Erin: 26:05

Oh, absolutely.

Kellie: 26:07

Very purposeful, very intentional, and very grateful. And so, yes, we are not moving away in any way, shape, or form from The P-I-G. And if people want to call it the PIG Podcast, I'm totally cool with that because she would love that as well.

Erin: 26:24

And it's still relevant.

Kellie: 26:25

And in fact, I'm gonna show this picture and we'll post it on the website of mom in her Miss Piggy costume. This had to have been in the 70s because of the people that are in there. But look at her, that is so I remember her dressing up as Miss Piggy every Halloween and having that hilarious snout, you know, on her face. And also the Muppets. Yes. Remember the Muppets and everything was Miss Piggy, and especially around Christmas time. And you and I in the mid-80s into the 90s had the extraordinary privilege of spending a lot of time in Aspen back when Aspen was not the Aspen that people know today. Yeah, you could walk around town and say hi to John Denver and you know, sit down on a bench and play a guitar. And it, you know, it was not the aspen that we know today. And John Denver was in Aspen, and so that was really cool because it was associated with Miss Piggy, and so that was a lot of fun.

Erin: 27:32

Yeah.

Kellie: 27:32

But yeah. So here we are. We are The P-I-G. We are doing this with purpose, intention, and gratitude. I know she's here with us right now and would be so proud of us. But as we roll back to the early 1980s, it's about 1981. Parents got divorced. We moved away from the farm and ranch. You were just a little three, four-year-old kiddo. I was just about 11 years old, just finishing up at Appleton Elementary School, where all of our parents and our grandparents and our aunts and our uncles and cousins and everybody went. And we kind of became a little bit of the black sheep, quite honestly. And even though we'd never lost the majority of our big hot-blooded Italian family, and we were able to maintain those relationships, and our mom was very well loved and well respected, that did create a huge divide. And it forced us into a situation where we had to start making sense of all of those changes. For me, I spent a good part of my early childhood, even though it was very fun and it was filled with so much connection with family. And we raised all that fruit and all those vegetables, and we shipped all over the country. And I mean, it was a really cool experience and raised all those animals. All of a sudden, it was all gone. But what was also gone was all the fighting inside those four walls of that house. And part of, while I don't want to belabor this, the caretaking role that Kellie took on was I would whisk you away as a little baby and as a little kid to get out of that house, get into the orchards, get into the fields, get out with the animals so that I could take you away from all of that that caused a lot of anxiety and panic in me as a little girl. I remember laying in bed and feeling like I had an elephant sitting on my chest and couldn't breathe. And so the one beautiful thing about this change in moving into town, while we had to navigate new relationships and trips to and from the farm and new life, new schools, new neighborhood, new friends, parents are with new people. The peace that we had, the quiet of our home really became a sanctuary for. Me. And as beautiful as that period of life was, and as much fun as we all had adjusting to that, I'm not sure how much you can remember of that, it was short-lived because it wasn't too long after that, about a year, that mom received her first cancer diagnosis.

Erin: 30:20

Yeah, and I don't remember that time at all. I don't have any memories of that time. I was so young, which we talked about. And so I have very few memories of actually living on the farm and being there. But I actually don't remember that first cancer diagnosis. I think that came when I was about five and you were about 12, if I remember correctly. And so she was this single mom with these two daughters trying to make her mark and build her career in radio. And yes, she was struck with a breast cancer diagnosis. And she was 35, I think. Exactly. If I was five, she was 35.

Kellie: 31:09

Yeah, it was actually, I think, right before she was 35 because um, in fact, no, she was 35 because it was May of 1983. So I was 12 on the cusp of 13. I was five almost six.

Erin: 31:24

She was 35, almost 36. Yep, that's exactly right. She was so young. And if I'm remembering this correctly, we had no known family history of breast cancer.

Kellie: 31:40

No, none. In fact, and this is part of what we want to talk about. We're going to provide some resources and information at the end for people to really take away if this is new for them. Although I think there's so much awareness with breast cancer awareness and crucial catch. Yes. You know, I love that the NFL is actually really putting an emphasis on all types of cancer. Yes. But one of the things that I learned through this whole process is she actually went in for a cervical biopsy, which you and I have familiarity with, and had a lump, and that turned out to be the main medical condition, not the cervical issue. But no, there was no history of cancer in the family, as far as anybody could tell. Here's what we do know about mom. She was born in 1947 at about three pounds. So she was very premature. And in the mid-1940s, to even survive a premature birth was miraculous. And so I think it it's a testament to her bravery and her courage and this kind of drive and independence and strength that she had from the moment that she came into the world. So unequivocally, she faced this diagnosis as young as she was, and even with a lot of fear, with that same courage, independence, strength, and bravery. We also know that cancers, when they're diagnosed younger, certain types of cancers can be more aggressive than others. And this was at the time with what they knew scientifically, and we don't have all of her medical records. So we can't say that she was exactly this or exactly that, you know, based on the science and medical literature and research and knowledge we have today. But at the time, this was an aggressive cancer. And I will never forget several things. But one of them is that is the year that terms of endearment hit the big screen. And it was almost identically our situation. And it was a mother who died of cancer. And I remember sitting with her in the movie theater watching that movie. I'm a little kid. I don't not really understand what's going on at all, other than I'm hitting puberty and in a new school with new friends, and all my cousins and all the friends that I grew up with all went to a totally different school. All of my animals are out of my life. Our dad doesn't have really anything to do with us, and he especially wouldn't have anything to do with us once she was diagnosed because that was a favor to her to take care of us instead of a privilege and an honor to take care of us. Whole other topic of conversation.

Erin: 34:31

Yeah.

Kellie: 34:32

And she was really battling this alone. And her doctors are saying, "You need to make plans for your girls." And as she and I talked later in life, she said to me unequivocally, there was no way I was going to let the two of you go into an environment that I knew was unstable and unhealthy. And so I had no choice but to live. No choice. So in the midst of going through diagnoses and treatment and working full-time jobs and starting a radio station and doing things that had never been done in western Colorado, she was a true innovator and a true visionary. She was absolutely fighting for her life because Kellie and Erin were the most important things in her life. Yeah.

Erin: 35:32

It's so beautiful. And I love that the two of you were able to share so many of those conversations and that I know how sacred those are to you. And I love that I have had the privilege of learning so many of these things about our early childhood through you because she and I never had those types of conversations. I was still young enough, but even I turned 17 weeks before she died. And so our relationship was just different. And and I know that there was so much that she even more so was trying to protect me from. And so I can I have a deep appreciation for that now. But I do love that the two of you had that time and had those conversations and that I know so much of what I know through you, which equals me hearing those stories through her. You know what I mean?

Kellie: 36:43

Yeah, you know, and it's it's interesting for me because there are, and we'll get to this kind of as we move into the 90s, because I moved away and out of the home, you know, before her second cancer diagnosis. And there's so many stories that you have of that time of life. And because of our age difference, that's actually been one of the beautiful things that has come through all of this time of historical reflection and unpacking of memories and moments. And it's one thing that I do want us to talk about, and so I'm gonna mention it here, but maybe we can come back to it later. And that is well, I just totally lost my train of thought.

Erin: 37:22

That's okay. Ditch the thought. We can come back to it, but I have no idea where you are gonna go with that, and that's okay.

Kellie: 37:36

Blame it on the menopause brain.

The Sisters: 37:39

100% totally fine.

Kellie: 37:41

Okay, so can you finish your thought?

Erin: 37:44

Um for me, it was just, you know, I just do have an appreciation for knowing so much of what I know, but those conversations came later in life. You know, I know so much of what I know now based on conversations that we've had in more recent years because they were never conversations that she and I had.

Kellie: 38:04

Yeah. And that's meaningful to me, you know, as we have unpacked all of this with Chris and we've gone back, you know, into these moments and memories. There's there's so much that I actually have learned about your experience with her in the years that I was gone and had moved out of the house. You know, Erin, one of the things that keeps coming up in our conversations is caretaking Kellie. And I want to share a few memories that I do have from the 80s. I think that some of these you've heard, some maybe you haven't, but I think that they paint a picture of always how much you have meant to me and how seriously I have taken my role, my responsibilities, and my promises. During that period of time, you were so little, and mom got really, really sick. And I felt a lot of responsibility. And I know we had people around who were helping us. She had some of the most incredible friends who spent time at the house. I do remember, even though she had a very broken relationship with her mother and her brother, I do remember our grandmother, Rita, coming to stay with us. It was probably during her surgery and her initial recovery from that first cancer. And she had come to visit with our grandpa John and our Aunt Gaga and Aunt Angie and Uncle Joe and you know our Massachusetts relatives when we lived on the farm. But that was really the last visit I remember of our grandmother coming to our home and being a part of our lives. That was meaningful because that became a very broken relationship and a huge disconnect. So we we never really had that maternal grandparenting on her side. But when everybody was gone and the house was quiet, there were many nights where I would make you dinner, get you to bed, read you a bedtime story, check on mom, make sure she was okay. And she was really sick during that time. And I remember the very first time early in her chemotherapy where she was in the bathroom throwing up. It was right next to my bedroom. And so I went in there and I was just rubbing her back, and her hair started falling out in my hand. And I didn't want her to see it. I knew she knew she was losing her hair, right? But this is such a new experience for me. I have no idea what to expect. She has no idea what to expect, and you're just along for the ride, you sweet little thing, you, even though we had our bratty little sister moments and our bossy big sister moments. I'm sure there were a lot of them then. But her hair started falling out in my hand, and I didn't want her to see it. So I hid it underneath the rug, which is funny because you and I talk a lot about sweeping the crumbs of our relationship under the rug. And and then I she'd go back to bed and she'd get settled, and I would go in there and I'd pull all that hair and I'd bury it in the bottom of the trash can. And I have to tell you, I don't have a ton of memories from that time of life because it was so chaotic, but I do remember that. I remember feeding and reading and taking care of you, and I remember doing that and being that connected to her at that point. And that's a lot for a little kid to manage, but I'm also so grateful that I had the experience and that I am able to reflect back on it now with without raw emotion, but with emotion.

Erin: 42:02

Yeah, it's always so crazy for me to hear you talk about that and to relive that memory because you were the caretaker. You were my caretaker, and you were her caretaker. And even though I hear you say that you are grateful for being that person and having that time with her, I still want our listeners to remember that you were only 12, and that is so much weight on a 12-year-old's shoulders. And I think that for me, the interesting just perspective on that is that Jason's daughter, Harper, is 12.

Kellie: 42:50

Interesting, yeah.

Erin: 42:51

And so I see this life of a 12-year-old really closely in my world. So when I hear you talk about this and describe these things, I have a a totally new and different perspective and sense of reality on what an average 12-year-old life looks like. And that was not the life that you were leading as a 12-year-old.

Kellie: 43:22

No, it wasn't. And at the same time that that was going on, there was so much fighting between she and Alan, our biological father, and gosh, so much ugliness happening in that side at that time. And so I'm not this isn't a woe is me conversation. I really want this to be about mom and her cancer experience. Here's what I will say: she handled not only her cancer, but her divorce. And she had a boyfriend at the time, Joe, who I didn't like. I don't know if you remember him.

Erin: 44:01

I do not remember him at all, but I've heard stories from you.

Kellie: 44:06

I didn't like him at all. He was an attorney, I think. And his mom was really kind to us and to our mom when she was going through her cancer. And I know she was a great source of strength for mom, but I didn't like this guy. He would make us all go hiking. I remember we all went hiking up in marble one time. And remember back that was when the, uh, first Walkmans came out. I had a yellow Walkman with the tape cassette player. Oh, yeah, and the headphones. And so we would go hiking and they would all be mad at me because I would be listening to Too Low for Zero Elton John album. I don't know why I remember that, but that's what I would listen to. I loved it at the time. So we go hiking. Anyhow, I didn't like this guy, and she had a really, really good friend, Beverly Hartman, who lived right across the street. And I remember telling Beverly one day, because she saw me walking to the bus to catch the bus for school, and I was crying, and mom was sick. She, you know, she was having her cancer, and Beverly stopped me and she asked me what was wrong. And I said, Don't tell my mom. And I told her that I just didn't like this guy. Well, next thing I knew, the next day, the dude was gone. Like he was out of there. And so she was so weak and riddled with this cancer, and yet she was so strong, she was so focused on us as girls, being the very best mother that she could. And here's the thing: I have always said this, I know unequivocally that our mother was not perfect. She had her own faults, she had her own issues. A lot of them stem from her upbringing and how she was raised and leaving home at the very tender age of 18, going from Massachusetts, Western Mass, Pittsfield, out to California by herself at 18 years old to start her life and follow a job and get to the city. Like she just wanted to get as far away from home as she possibly could, and she did. Again, courage, bravery, tenacity, yes, innovation, and vision. And so here she is back in Western Colorado, and all of this is happening. And she was the driving force behind public radio. She worked for national public radio, she was in consulting, she ran companies, she was in sales, she was in telecommunications. We had a big satellite dish in the yard when we lived out on the farm in the 70s, and this was her world. And so while she was battling cancer, while she was raising us, she was also looking out for what was in our best interests. And when I told her friend Beverly, who lived across the street in Paradise Hills on Caribbean, that I didn't like Joe, Joe was gone. Yeah. And there's so many great memories of that time of life and living in that neighborhood in that house. But I think suffice it to say, the beautiful part of this story is that she goes into a full remission. Yeah. And in that remission, she met and married the love of her life, our pop. Yeah. So Pop and Scott wound up coming into our lives and we became an instant family. And that was 1984. So all of this happened so fast.

Erin: 47:39

Yeah. Well, and then again, I was so young that I don't have the memories that you do of like the time in their lives where they were like dating. Like I just don't remember all of that. But then they got married. And I think that it is fair to say, and I've actually had these conversations with Pop, is that he stepped into our lives when we really needed a dad. Yep. He took on that role with so much love and so much enthusiasm. And it is such a special episode for our listeners to go back and listen to that episode of our conversation with Pop to really learn about how extraordinary this man is. And on the heels of him losing a daughter and then stepping into our world and embracing the two of us as if we were his own speaks to his character and this unending love that he has. And we were an instant family, and all of a sudden, I had a big brother, and so did you. You went from being the oldest child to the middle child. That's crazy. I was still the baby, my role didn't change.

Kellie: 49:05

No wonder I've had so much therapy all these years...

Erin: 49:10

But then all of a sudden, like I just remember being six and having a 16-year-old brother. He was 10 years older than me. And I really thought he hung the moon.

Kellie: 49:23

Yeah.

Erin: 49:23

And I, you know, we just we had such a cool relationship. And we were a really immediate family. And our grandparents, Pop's parents, grandma and grandpa Thomas, same thing, just embraced the three little pigs with everything that they had and loved us so fiercely. And so well. Yeah. There was not a day ever that I didn't feel their love for us. And uh, there's just I just I felt every ounce.

Kellie: 50:04

Yeah, sometimes there aren't words. You know?

Erin: 50:07

Yeah.

Kellie: 50:08

Well, here, let's start by sharing this. Pop, totally coincidentally, was mom's anesthesiologist for her breast cancer surgery.

Erin: 50:18

Yeah.

Kellie: 50:18

And they had no connection other than he was her anesthesiologist for her breast cancer surgery. And she remembered that. He didn't even remember that. Yeah, he did not even remember that. And one of the things that I do want to talk about is we travel through the 90s because we had eight years of really just so many incredible experiences as a family. Um, we traveled, we were able to do some sailing. Grandma and grandpa had a place in Florida. We were able to go to camp because we all spent too much money at the country club swimming pool one summer, that first summer, and on hot dogs and ice cream cones. And they said, forget this, we're shipping you guys to camp and we're going on a trip.

Erin: 51:09

That was probably cheaper!

Kellie: 51:12

Well, that was the exact point, right? It was cheaper. But you know, those years I was going into high school, which was fun because Scott was a senior, and so we were able to go to school together that one year before he graduated. And since we're talking about mom at the forefront of this, while we had an amazing family and all these experiences, if we go back to the previous years, one of the things we'd be remiss to talk about our mother is that she was dressed to the hilt always, all the time. Colorful. I mean, one of the very last things she ever said to me before she died was stop wearing so much black and white. So I I want everybody to know that the only thing black that I have on today is my black flip-flops and a little touch of black on my earrings and my bracelet. But you're wearing a white shirt. I'm looking at you, and white pants. It's kind of tan. It's not totally white. Very neutral. It is very neutral. Anyhow, she was very colorful. Coral was her favorite color, but you name the colors: green, red, purple, pink, yellow. She looked great in all of it. She was always dressed to the hill, and an outfit was head to toe. Oh, yeah. She had the earrings, the necklace, the shoes, the hose. Pantyhose were a thing back in the 70s and 80s and 90s. The bags, the bags, the purses, the backpacks. I mean, all of it. And she self-proclaimed had a little bit of a shopping addiction. And that shopping addiction, I believe and know from our conversations and from her writings, really stemmed from how mutilated she felt as a woman from her massectomy in the 1980s, the early 1980s. And at that stage of what we were doing in medicine, it was not the advanced technology and procedures and equipment that we have today. She had a very, very ugly scar that covered all of that side of her chest, from the top of her breast all the way over the top, underneath. They did not save her nipple. She had that big massive scarring. I don't know if you ever saw or remember seeing, but she felt less than. She felt ugly. And that always made me very sad. Now I think she absolutely made up for it in her scarves and her hats and everything that she looked so beautiful in when she was going through her chemotherapy treatments. But that also led to a lot of years in the 80s and nine in early 90s, where she had to really navigate that in her own heart and spirit and come to terms and peace with that. I don't know if she ever did. But that was very, very difficult for her to feel, even though she had a reconstruction. It was almost like the reconstruction made it worse. And I think today, you know, I have a daughter who has gone through two cancer diagnoses, a type of breast cancer, not the same, and has had a double massectomy. And the challenges that come along with that as a woman, I cannot relate to. I can have empathy for that because I was the daughter of a mother who had these procedures and went through that surgery. But I have never been behind that knife. I don't know how that feels. And I know from the friends and family members that I've had these conversations with, and even a daughter, who have their own individual perspectives and feelings about it because they are their own snowflake. But there's so much more available today than there was then.

Erin: 55:08

Yeah.

Kellie: 55:08

Plastic surgery-wise, procedure-wise, tattooing, some of the tattooing that women do now if they've had mastectomies. And the I mean, it looks more beautiful than their boobs, let's be quite honest. I mean, it is just gorgeous. And there are some of those things that I can't help but reflect sometimes about how mom would have approached that. And I think she would have probably been really into it. I think she would have been really enthusiastic about having some fun.

Erin: 55:41

I agree.

Kellie: 55:42

... with her body that way instead of feeling so negatively about herself through all those years.

Erin: 55:48

Oh, yeah, I completely agree with that. It is really incredible how far we've come in terms of technology and all of those things. And it obviously does not change the pain and the anguish that anybody faces with a breast cancer diagnosis or any diagnosis, right? And having to walk that path. But I do hope that anybody who faces this can find the beauty within, and that there are things that can be done to just make the journey as bearable as possible.

Kellie: 57:21

And mom's next cancer diagnosis came in 1992. I was away, so I had left home in 1988. I went to Hanover College in Indiana. That lasted all of one semester. And in the throes of mono and coming home for Christmas break, I told mom and pop, bless their hearts, six hours before my plane left, that I wasn't going back. And I think they thought I'd gone off the deep end. My roommate and dorm supervisor that happened to be one and the same person packed up all of my stuff and shipped it home. So I stayed home that next semester, went to Mesa College, now Colorado Mesa University, because we're big Mesa. And then took off to Boulder. And I was there until 1992, graduated, moved down to Arizona, and I was living in Arizona, working for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, applying to grad schools and living my dream life. You had come down, I think, for a couple of visits, but you were at home when mom got that second cancer diagnosis. What do you remember?

Erin: 58:33

I was a sophomore in high school, Grand Junction High School. And, you know, I remember same, very little of that time. The things that I remember are, I remember at least being told that mom had discovered that cancer. She had discovered that lump very, very early. And so, yes, as a reminder to our listeners, you know, she had had a single mastectomy, only one side. And so, and then chemo went through chemo and radiation. So then 10 years later, when she got the second cancer diagnosis, this was a new tumor. This was on the other side. It was actually an unrelated cancer, from what I understand. Yes. And she had caught it very, very early. And she had had such a horrible experience with her first surgery and with that mastectomy that after a conversation with her doctor, that they really decided that her best course of action was gonna be to do a lumpectomy and radiation. And so she did not have a mastectomy on the other side. She did not go through chemotherapy, she did a lumpectomy and radiation. And I was a teenager. Let's not forget that I was, you know, in the throes of high school, which for me was as social as it could be. I was not a great student. I did not love school. I loved playing soccer and I loved hanging out with my friends in class and in the halls all day, every day. Done. So yeah. Even though I remember that time and I remember the diagnosis and I remember her having the lumpectomy and all of that, I think that I was just really wrapped up in my very selfish teenage years. And I had a boyfriend. And again, I was playing soccer and had my friends. And that was really my world. And without having a lot of concrete evidence of this and not really recalling many conversations about this, I can't help but think that mom was probably really happy that I was just going about my life.

Kellie: 1:01:09

Yes.

Erin: 1:01:10

And that I wasn't consumed by her illness or the what ifs. I don't remember really being. I actually do remember having some hard days. I remember one incident in particular where I don't remember how it came about or how I had shared with a couple of friends that mom, you know, had cancer or was sick. But I do remember that being met with some kind of teasing and bullying. And these were a just a couple of stupid boys in my class. I remember who they were. And I remember just some really hurtful things that they said. And so for me, that was actually kind of one of the only instances of that. And I think that maybe because of that, I just kept some stuff to myself and didn't really outwardly, you know, show any real emotion to at least classmates and things like that. But I think that going back to I just really have to believe that mom was pretty happy that I was just continuing to do my thing and to hit the soccer pitch and go to school and all of the things that I was doing and not really dwelling on her and her illness and kind of having more of a woe is me attitude. I think that she was probably pretty happy that I was just living your life. Pretty oblivious. Yeah. Pretty oblivious, probably. And I look back on it now and I'm like, oh, I was like so selfish. And maybe bratty, but I I don't think so. I think that I was just maybe I was actually just doing my best with the information that I had. And it's also very likely that I didn't have all the information.

Kellie: 1:03:04

I think that's probably true. I think that there was probably an element of both mom and pop that were really trying to protect you. And me, because I remember getting the phone call in Arizona, and I remember the shock because this was a second completely unrelated diagnosis. And I do remember having the conversation with her about radiation over chemotherapy. In fact, I looking down at her journal, Erin, right now, this is January 22nd of 1993: "Day two of radiation therapy. God, I can't believe this is happening again."

Erin: 1:03:43

Wow.

Kellie: 1:03:44

"It's been almost 10 years. I thought I was safe. I don't know if I can do this." That's it. That's all. Very short. And that's the last entry in this particular journal. And I share that openly, not to violate her privacy, but because I think that having insight into where somebody was at in their own mind. And I think this goes back again to even her diagnosis in the 80s, her first and foremost thought outwardly was making sure that us as a family and us as girls were okay and taken care of, and that our life was, you know, clicking along seamlessly and handling her stuff, handling the weight of all that shit to the best of her ability. And I think it brings me a lot of peace knowing that she had such amazing friends and such a broad community of support. I mean, she was a pillar in this community by that point. You know, KPRN was on the airwaves, Colorado Public Radio was being formed, she was traveling to China, teaching at the University of Beijing, public broadcasting. I mean, she was doing it. Garrison Keeler was visiting. I mean, it was like we had crazy stuff going on. And so I think it hit her out of left field just as much as everybody else. And she did the radiation. She did not do the chemotherapy and went into remission, and life was great.

Erin: 1:05:15

Yeah. And it was a pretty short series of events, from what I understand, kind of from diagnosis to the lumpectomy and then the radiation. It was just kind of right. It was a pretty short treatment period, from what I remember.

Kellie: 1:05:31

So the real blow came in May of 1994. May 26th, 1994, in fact: "Today I had a bronchoscopy. Bad news. My cancer has spread to my lungs. It doesn't look good. This has been a very tearful week for all of us. Lew, me, Kellie. We don't want to tell Erin until she comes home. She's so very happy right now. I always felt I'd be here for my girls to help them. I want to be a gray-haired grandmother, to love my children and their children. I want to grow old with Lew and do all the wonderful things we've planned. Sail, cruise, dance, love. But I also feel very peaceful. I have so much. My love for Lew is deep and strong, and he loves me deeply too. I truly know that. We are a great family. I have friends, and they are ever rallying now. It will all be alright."

Erin: 1:06:32

Thank you for reading that.

Kellie: 1:06:34

And again, I hadn't planned to share that, but I just feel like as we are wrapping up her cancer journey and moving into how we experienced grief so differently. Totally, I had I was engaged and I had never planned to move back to Grand Junction, but I had moved back to Grand Junction when we was getting married. And I'd only been home a couple of weeks. And right before she got that diagnosis, she had gone on a scuba diving trip with all of her best girlfriends. And before she left on that trip, she had a chest x-ray, which was just standard operating procedure, you know, when you've gone through a couple cancer diagnoses. And her last one had been clean as a whistle. And this was before the days of HIPAA. And while she was away, the doctor called Pop and Pop went in and looked at her chest x-ray. And it was very clear that that cancer had spread to her lungs and was very, very aggressive. So we actually found out before she got home, and then you heard what she wrote. I was very grateful that I was back home. I was grateful that you were at Fountain Valley High School surrounded by people that you loved. That first year of going to school, I know was really difficult for you, but also you had really settled in and you were really loving it. And the friends you made and the soccer you were playing and the horseback riding you were doing. And it was kind of like being at summer camp year-round. But it was cool. I know it was such a great experience for you. And I had just started a big girl grown-up job, you know, working for Scott McGuinness, you know, U.S. congressman running the congressional office here locally, had no idea what I was doing because I planned to spend my life in genetics. Didn't know a damn thing about politics. But here we were. And we were planning my wedding. We were planning Scott's wedding. She was, and faced with this very serious terminal diagnosis. And within just a matter of months, that cancer traveled from her chest to her throat to her eye. She lost this vision in that eye and to her brain. It was very aggressive. She had a lot of fluid on her lungs and it moved very quickly. You came home that summer.

Erin: 1:09:00

Yeah. So I had I had gone to boarding school that year, my junior year of high school. And like I previously referenced, right, just was not a great student. And mom and pop just really wanted something different for me. So even though I kind of went kicking and screaming, I was gonna go somewhere. And so they gave me the choice of where to go. And so I looked at a lot of different schools and I landed at Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. And it was such an incredible experience, and I was so happy and I did really turn around so much. And so I do have a deep appreciation for you all waiting to tell me until I got home and got through finals and you know, all of that, and finished my junior year really strong. I was home for the summer, some of the summer, right? That was also the summer that I had planned to do a little exchange program in France. And so I went to France for four weeks at 16 years old and then brought a girl home with me who was supposed to be with us for a few weeks. We cut her trip short because mom was so sick. And, you know, yeah, she was, you know, she was diagnosed in May. I found out when I got home in June. I mean, it was just a week or two, right? It's not like you guys withheld this information from me for a really long time. You just let me get through finals and get home. And then she died in September, and it was a crazy busy summer. You got married, and it was the day after your wedding that I left for France. I remember the very next day, and then I came home and Christine came home with me from France, and we spent a couple of weeks traveling. Pop flew us up to Wyoming. We went, we went to Yellowstone, we went to the Tetons, we spent time a very dear friend of mine, Karen. Her parents owned a dude ranch in Wyoming. And so we went there, they hosted us, and we just did all this amazing stuff, and then came home. And then we had Scott's wedding in the Cayman Islands, and then I returned to school, and I was only at school for a couple of weeks before I came home for the weekend and was actually home when she died.

Kellie: 1:11:24

Yeah. You know, she fought as hard as she could. The cancer really took hold, I would say in August, because getting her to Scott's wedding was uh nothing short of a feat.

Erin: 1:11:38

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:11:38

Although she was able to make it, and I'll never forget. Do you remember that Pop asked her to dance? And so she said, yeah, and she garnered up the strength, and she looked so beautiful in her hat, she had her eye patch on, and that beautiful dress. And they walked out, it was a live band playing on the beach, and of all songs that they started playing, it was Stairway to Heaven.

Erin: 1:12:03

Oh, I do not remember that.

Kellie: 1:12:05

You don't? I will never forget that as long as I live. We were all bawling. That was really impactful. I think the other things that really stand out to me during that time is knowing in retrospect that this was the time where she prepared the boxes unbeknownst to us. We didn't know anything about them.

Erin: 1:12:26

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:12:27

And over the next decade, after she was gone and rolled over in her bed on the morning of September 12th, Monday, with all of her pillows surrounding her, and even had gotten her oxygen too. Like it was like she was she just got herself into the perfect place that she wanted to be after staying up with Pop all night long, talking to him. I stayed Sunday all day long at the house. I told her I was going to take a leave of absence from work. She called me that night and gave me my last lecture. But that this was the time before that day that she prepared the boxes. And then over the next decade, they were delivered to us per her directives, as Pop promised, on the exact day, at the exact moment, in person, wherever we were, wherever he was, for her memory to continue on so that she would never be what her worst fear was, which was a picture in the bottom of somebody's drawer. And what I love so much about the legacy act that she did, because she lived her legacy through her life with us, with Pop, just the conversation we've had today. She was a remarkable human being. Imperfect. Yeah. Had her own challenges and issues, just like all of us. But she was a remarkable, magnificent, extraordinary human being who, of all the people I've known in my entire life, is the one person I can say without a shadow of a doubt, since the day I was born, I have never doubted her love for me. And I often have told friends in the years since her passing, especially in those early years when friends were having issues with the mothers they didn't like or appreciate, which was hard to be honest. Yeah. When you're 24, 25, 26, and you're navigating life without your mother. Never, never, never questioned her love. And that's a really beautiful thing to receive from a parent. Yeah. I'm grateful that we've received that from Pop because we haven't had that on the other side.

Erin: 1:14:42

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:14:42

You know, we know what it feels like to not be truly, authentically forever loved by a parent, but we also know what it feels like to be loved. And that above the boxes, above everything, is a beautiful gift. And that act has carried her forward. And I continue to have dialogue and conversation with her. I continue to ask for her advice and her guidance. And I think going back to the very beginning, she interceded at a time when you and I needed her to intercede from beyond and said, we're going to put this thing back together one way or another.

Erin: 1:15:21

I couldn't agree with you more. So beautifully stated. And yeah, there is no doubt that she has orchestrated this project and this podcast. And like you said, she is absolutely sitting here with us. She would have loved podcasting. And so I know that she is just beside herself, beaming that you and I are sitting here with microphones and headphones, talking to each other, talking about her on a podcast named the PIG. Yeah. Does it get any better than that? There's nothing better. There's nothing better. And I know you're in your office and I'm in my makeshift office, but you know, I know we have the same picture on our desks. Yep. And I've got my little, remember this?

Kellie: 1:16:22

Oh, the angel pig. And you know what's so cool about that picture?

Erin: 1:16:27

What?

Kellie: 1:16:28

Is she's wearing pink and it's breast cancer awareness month.

Erin: 1:16:31

Yes, a hundred percent. You know, I hope little things like this, and we we can post that picture because on our website, it's part of the collage of all the photos of her, but I forever want our listeners to know how deeply ingrained she is in everything that we do. And really has she's been in the driver's seat. Yeah, I feel like, of this project and of this podcast.

Kellie: 1:16:58

Yeah.

Erin: 1:16:58

And it's a joy.

Kellie: 1:17:00

Yeah, and it's been fun to follow her lead.

Erin: 1:17:02

Oh, yeah. And it's such a gift and such an honor to be able to sit here with you and to have these conversations and to reminisce and to talk about her and to just very much keep her memory alive.

Kellie: 1:17:17

Well, I know that she is celebrating, and I think that this would be a really great time for us to shift to the 31 years without her and go back to the very beginning of the opening of this episode when you talked about how differently we realize we have grieved or processed and healed through her loss over this time and how as snowflakes that's different for every human being.

Erin: 1:17:48

It is. And yeah, I think all of those details and all of the conversation about how we perceived those different times in our lives, right? From farm life to moving off the farm and the first diagnosis, and then us being at really different places in life when she got that second diagnosis, and I was in high school, and you were graduated from college and pursuing your dream career in Arizona. And then just two short years later, we were at different places in our life again. I was off at a boarding school. You had just moved back to Grand Junction begrudgingly, and you know, we're getting married, and and so your role, not only in the family, but in the community, like there were so many changes, so many shifts. And again, none of us ever know what life is going to throw at us and when. For me to go to that school. And so, as hard as it was, you know, it was my senior year of high school, and I spent a couple of weeks at home, and then I went back to finish out my time there. I think that if I am really honest in reflecting back on that time, I think that we were grieving long distance. You know, we had just lost our mom. And yes, we were at very different places in life, but we were literally in different places. And I'm sure that there were lots of phone calls between us, but my senior year of high school, that first year without her, is such a blur in my mind. I have very few memories of my senior year of high school. I just do not remember that time of my life. You know, I think that that really, you know, the trajectory then of my life was impacted, obviously, by her death. And the way that I grieved, given who I was at the time and where I was at in my life, I feel like I was still, in hindsight, a very selfish 17-year-old who had just lost my mom, and I didn't know how to navigate that. Living away from my dad, away from my sister, trying to do the right thing by staying at this school that was her dream for me to attend. And then all of a sudden, it was off to college and off, you know, kind of living my life. And I just feel like I can say with a lot of confidence that I just really floated through my late teens and early 20s pretty lost. I just don't think I had a lot of really concrete things that were kind of keeping me grounded and reminding me of who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I just kind of felt like I really took on this like free spirit and I just was off to the races.

Kellie: 1:21:30

And you wonder why I was a hovering mother?!? You know, we talked about so much of that in the last episode we had with Chris.

Erin: 1:21:42

Yeah, we did.

Kellie: 1:21:43

That'd be a great episode for people to go back to to really get some insight into that. And part of that was while I have a lot of blurred memories from that first year. I also had several back-to-back kind of traumas. My then mother-in-law had ignored a lump in her breast for five years and let it grow without telling anybody about it, which is a reminder right here to everybody listening. Fill your boobies, have somebody else fill your boobies, like whatever it takes. Find those lumps, get your mammograms, get that stuff taken care of every single year. Because catching early does matter.

Erin: 1:22:26

It does matter. And I also think that just in our snowflak-ness, we're all different, and everybody's boobies feel different. And so you really need to know what your normal is because your normal is very different from my normal. It's important, it's critical.

Kellie: 1:22:44

Yeah, those those baseline mammograms are important, and then yeah, feeling, feeling, feeling and go get them squished and prodded and poked. It's not that bad. But my mother-in-law at the time had let this lump grow, and of course, then our mother dies and she panics, and she had a very, very she had a soft ball-sized lump taken out of her breast in November. And this is two months on the heels of mom dying. And then we had some other family medical stuff that happened that spring. So while there were some other things that came at me pretty hardcore, I had also, and this is part of the boxes story, made some pretty big promises to our mom, who, in hindsight, she was 46, turning 47. And if she were alive today, I don't think she would ask me to do some of the things that she asked, but I think she was afraid. And I think she was doing the best she could with who she was in the moment and what she knew and the and the type of relationship that we had and that we had to have because of how early I had to grow up and how early I became a caretaker. But I had made a lot of promises to make sure that Erin was going to be okay and that Erin didn't go off the rails, and that nothing bad happened to Erin. And so I know without a shadow of a doubt that I went into that caretaking hovering mode, which may have made you even more off the rails and kicking back and screaming and fighting. And it's really beautiful for you and I as sisters to today look back at that time of our life without resentment, without anger. There was resentment and anger and misunderstanding, misinterpretation for a long time. But to have put all of that to rest because of the incredible internal work that we have done individually and now collectively is a real testament to me of what can be.

Erin: 1:24:46

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:24:47

And that life with your siblings, no matter what you've gone through, no matter what life has thrown at you, no matter what roads you have been forced to or chosen to travel, that life can be great as siblings.

Erin: 1:25:03

Yeah, it's so beautifully stated. That was absolutely perfect. And it's true because there was a lot of resentment. And it's so interesting, you know. At 17, when you jumped, I mean, headfirst, back into caretaking mode, I was like, no. And I I was so resistant to it, and I think more than anything because I had just lost my mom. And yes, you had to, but I didn't want you to mother me.

Kellie: 1:25:34

Of course not. I wouldn't have wanted you to mother me either!

Erin: 1:25:39

And so I couldn't understand why you felt like you needed to mother me. Like, mom was gone. Like, I just just be my sister, just be my sister, be my bossy big sister. Which you were with a touch of mothering. As long as I wasn't bitchy with a touch of mothering. And and at the time, again, 17, selfish, narrow-minded, I I didn't understand it for what it was. It's been a lot of things. I think that I have to be careful because I catch myself then feeling guilty, having regret over things that I may have said or done during that time, especially when I think back on things that I did or said, not really caring how they impacted you, like and just and pushing you away a little bit and knowing that that's what I was doing, but feeling okay with that at the time. And now looking back on that, feeling like it was not okay for me to do that at the time. So I have to be really careful about spending too much time in that space where I feel guilt because I can, it's easy for me to let myself live there, and that doesn't do anybody any good. And so there's that. The flip side is you and I have done so much work, quote unquote, over the last year. We've had so many conversations, and it's been such a joy to revisit our relationship, our upbringing, our relationship with mom. And I think that especially the timing of when we started this project in our lives. And we've talked about this in past episodes too, but mom died when she was 47, and we really dove into this project when I was just turning 47, and now I'm 48, right? So I've outlived her by just one year. You've outlived her by eight, which is wild. It is wild. And I think that there's something to be said for just life experience.

Kellie: 1:28:47

Yeah.

Erin: 1:28:48

And just being at this place and walking through everything that we've walked through and different types of loss, loss of marriages, loss of careers, loss of finances, loss of identity. Like you and I have both experienced now other types of loss as well. And I think for the first time ever, we see ourselves on more of an equal playing field in life. And I feel like, even though there's obviously still seven years between us, that doesn't change. But I feel like at this phase of our lives, at 48 and 55, that we are far more alike than we are different. And having all of these conversations and doing some work that we've done, and especially the assessment work that we've done with Marcus, we can maybe tease on that a little bit because those are going to be upcoming episodes of really diving into who we are as people and understanding. Understanding not only who I am and what I do, but why I do the things that I do and why you do the things that you do. And creating that deeper understanding of each other has completely transformed the way I look back now and reflect upon the differences in our grieving process. And I have such a deep appreciation for how you navigated through everything that you did as a 12-year-old girl taking care of your little sister and taking care of your mom and then continuing on through our life and through our family and through her diagnoses. And then certainly after her death in the last 31 years of how you've navigated life with me. But now I just have I I get it. It makes sense now more than it ever has in the past. And so I'm very grateful for that. And it's a really beautiful thing in my life for us to have been willing to take on this project. And I'm really proud of the fact that when we did dive into it, we said nothing's off limits. Like we need to be able to talk about the hard stuff. We need to be able to dig into the past and remember things that are probably going to be painful and talk about things that are going to be uncomfortable and to talk about some of the hurt and some of the disconnect and all of that. And I feel like you and I spent so many years in the fitness industry that this is probably a great analogy for us, is it's just like breaking down muscle. You know, when you just you have to tear it in order for it to build back stronger. And I feel like there's an element of that with us that we've done and we've had to kind of rip open some of those old wounds and kind of dig through scar tissue, but we've rebuilt so much better and stronger. And so I wouldn't change that for anything.

Kellie: 1:32:13

Well, that's hard to follow. That's really awesome, Erin. You know, my faith and spiritual belief system is there are no wrong steps. There are just steps. And if you take those steps and they don't work out or they feel like they were wrong, we have the knowledge, the know-how, the intellect, and the support to be able to move in a different direction, either get back on the old path or get back on a new one. But life just continues to unfold with every step that we take. And I have held so much regret, failure, abandonment, insecurity, lack of self-confidence over my own head for so many years. That part of the grieving differently and the awareness of that process and strengthening this healing muscle has allowed me to set all of those things that are not doing me, you, my husband, my children, my family, my clients, my community any good. But to finally be able to set all of that down. And I have to be honest with you that until this relationship was on solid ground, I found all of that very difficult. When we made a commitment and went on this extraordinary journey together, I have found all of that much easier to do. To look at myself in the mirror in a very different light. And to celebrate the caretaking that I did, to celebrate the grief that I've gone through, to celebrate the difficulties and the challenges and the misunderstandings, because every single moment has been a part of this amazing life journey. And if I had made different steps along the way, it wouldn't have led to here, to today. I like the person that I am and have become. And every human being needs a place of safety, security, and comfort to rest, to be. We all need our people. For me, that has always been steeped in family. And maybe that's because there's been so much family brokenness since the very beginning of my life. Abandonment. Abandonment leaves you saying to yourself your whole entire life, what's wrong with me? So even though we grieved differently, the fact that we did grieve differently and being able to be honest and open about grieving differently has brought us to this point today where I see the most beautiful parts of you and the most beautiful parts of me. And I rest in joy and happiness and contentment every single day in our relationship. That's been a lot of work to get there. So big kudos to you and I for doing the hard shit.

Erin: 1:35:36

We are awesome.

Kellie: 1:35:38

We are awesome.

Erin: 1:35:40

It makes me well, thank you for that, first and foremost. I echo all of that, and it is beautiful. And I had a couple of thoughts while you were talking. One is I really hope that our story helps other siblings reconnect. And it's not gonna be easy. It does take work, and there will have to be hard conversations, but man, is it worth it to be on this side. And we're still doing that, we're still, you know, having these conversations and uncovering things that we didn't know about each other and about our experiences. But being able to uncover and visit those experiences with a different bond, with kind of different glasses on, so to speak, is really cool. And, you know, we say all the time, and we said at the beginning of this episode, you know, hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. I would add on to that that revisiting our own story has helped us create a more meaningful connection to our own and to each other. Each other, which is really cool.

Kellie: 1:36:56

It is really cool. And a really cool part of what has helped us has not only been embarking on this amazing legacy project with Chris Howard and the boxes. People can learn more about that if they haven't already on previous episodes, but also working with Marcus as a coach. And so stepping out of the role of wife and out of the role of sister-in-law and into the role of we want to utilize information about ourselves and each other and look at that side by side in comparison to each other to not only empower ourselves as unique individuals, but to empower our relationship to continue growing and thriving and to be the best that we can be as partners in this project. Yeah. And so coming up on the next two episodes, we're going to do a two-part series with Marcus, where we're actually going to post our assessment on the website so that people can look at it. Now, these assessments are expansive. So it would take us an entire year of podcast episodes to go through the entire DISC assessment, the entire Driving Forces assessment, the entire EQ assessment, the entire Acumen assessment, stress assessments, communication assessments, team insights, relationship insights. But what Marcus did is he took our individual reports, which we've gone through together with him, and put them side by side in a comparison. So we're looking at just our behaviors, how we do what we do, and just our driving forces, our values, what motivates us, why we do what we do, and walk through that entire report together with him in real time for the first time, the first time we'd ever seen that comparison report. Yeah. As sisters on air. And it's really going to be great episodes if listeners will just really take the time to tune into those takeaways and hopefully even explore how they can do this for themselves because the information is so invaluable.

Erin: 1:39:08

Yeah, a hundred percent. And Marcus is a master of his craft, and we both know that, but I am really excited to share him in a different light with our listeners because he has been a guest on a couple of episodes in the past. But it's such a joy to work with him. And I've now had that privilege, you know, in a couple of areas and working with him by myself and working with him in conjunction with Jason and how amazingly impactful, you know, this has been on our relationship. And so it was really profound and really insightful, and it was beautiful. We had fun, we laughed a lot, we cried. I it was just, I cannot wait to share this. And it is a really raw, vulnerable side of us, you know, and putting these assessments out for our listeners to see. But hopefully it's impactful and inspires people. And yeah.

Kellie: 1:40:09

Yeah. I think it's the language inside of those assessments and the awareness that we've gained about ourselves and each other that have helped us more than anything acknowledge how we grieved differently and why that's okay. Yes. So more to come on that. As we close up the episode today, Erin, I think that we do want to, in honor of October being breast cancer awareness month, share some things that are really important for all human beings, men and women alike, and the younger the better to really start paying attention to. Get that baseline mammogram, fill those boobies up one side and down the other, or have somebody else fill them for you. But make sure those boobies get felt for bumps and lumps.

Erin: 1:40:59

Yes.

Kellie: 1:40:59

And if you find one, go get it checked. Statistic-wise, one in eight women, that's about 13% of women, will be diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. In 2023, over 42,200 women in the US alone died of breast cancer. And we know that breast cancer, when caught early, can be treated very, very, very successfully. And that also includes nutrition and lifestyle changes, not just medical and clinical care changes. So if you know you are at risk, if you are somebody who knows your family history, make sure that if you can't get on a good nutrition and lifestyle health and wellness program of your own, reach out and connect with somebody that you trust and like and that can support you in that journey. Obviously, I specialize in personalized genetics in that space. So there's a lot that we can do in that space. But even without knowing your genetics, there is so much more. With breast cancer being the second leading cause of cancer in death among US women after lung cancer, and with breast cancer traveling to the lungs, as is exactly what happened with our mother, it is something to pay very, very close attention to. We want to decrease the number of breast cancer diagnoses in this country. So we want women, or men, we want your women, or women, we want your women, whatever. We're we want all women to just really be taking care of this. And that is important too. Breast cancer doesn't just happen in women, it happens in men too. The incident rate is much lower, but it does affect both men and women. So take good care of yourself and each other. And each other.

Erin: 1:42:57

I would also like to say that we really want to hold space for and acknowledge survivors, anyone currently fighting this battle, caregivers, which includes doctors and nurses and family members, anybody caring for somebody walking through this, we know, even with all those numbers that Kellie just gave, that when you're walking through it, either as a patient, a family member, that for some reason it still feels very lonely and very isolating. And so I do want to remind people that even though it feels that way, that you are not alone and there are so many resources. And so we just want to make sure that we are holding space for everybody because it isn't just a person that gets cancer, right? We know that when an individual gets cancer, their family gets cancer, it just affects everything in their world. And so just want to make sure that we are acknowledging everybody through these journeys.

Kellie: 1:44:08

Yes. And if you need resources or a connection or you want to share your story, reach out and connect with us because we have those resources available. We would love to have you featured on the PIG as a guest. Share your story with us. We are here to help support at the same time that we are here to help inspire. So reach out, connect, and don't be strangers.

Erin: 1:44:36

Well, this has been an extraordinary conversation. As always, I'm so grateful for you for the continued, real, raw, honest conversations that we have. I love that we get to acknowledge where we've been, look forward to where we're going, and this was a really beautiful time with you today, sister, and I'm very grateful. And I continue to just love that everything we do here on the PIG podcast is in mom's memory. It's her legacy continuing to shine through us. And like you so beautifully stated in the beginning, purpose, intention, and gratitude is how she lived her life. And I love that we just get to be good stewards of that and continue in her honor.

Kellie: 1:45:33

I think that's great. We're celebrating where we're at, and Marsha is no doubt the heartbeat of The P-I-G.

The Sisters: 1:46:07

We hope today's conversation offered you insight, encouragement, or even just a moment to pause and reflect on the story you're living and the legacy you're creating. If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and connect further at thePIGpodcast.com. And if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review, or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work. Because the PIG isn't just a podcast. It's a place to remember that even in the midst of grief, life goes on, resilience matters, and love never leaves. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time, hugs and kisses, everyone.