Dreams Really Do Come True
Hallmark Christmas Experience 2025
There’s a country song by Tim McGraw, “Live Like You Were Dying.” I love the song, love the lyrics, and I believe, especially after a metastatic cancer diagnosis, that that’s how you should live. But after this weekend, I am determined to live like I am not dying.
This past weekend was a dream come true for me. I attended Hallmark’s Christmas Experience in Kansas City, MO. I was able to meet my two very favorite Hallmark actors, and now I have another one in Niall Matter @unofficiallyniallmatter . Nikki DeLoach @nikdeloach and Andrew Walker @awalkk35 have always been inspiring to me. I love their movies (and ALL Hallmark movies), especially the ones they star in together. They have gotten me through some tough times -- when lying around, weak and tired, and feeling like I was lazy and missing out on life. They inspired me to write sweet, contemporary romance when I’ve always been more of a dark, thriller writer.
But this weekend was so much more than that; after meeting Nikki, Andrew and Niall, I want to live like I am not dying, to go after my dreams again. For the past 11 years, since my original breast cancer diagnosis (and for six years now since my breast cancer metastasized), I’ve been living differently – one day at a time. But I’ve been living like I’m dying. I have been afraid to start something new, to continue what I’ve been working on, whether it’s projects at home or professional projects I’m pursuing. I’ve been afraid to start anything because I’m afraid I won’t finish it, and I’ve been afraid to finish anything because I’m afraid that will be it for me. I was used to living a few months to a few months at a time, in between scans, for six years. I was afraid to work or go after my dreams because I was trying to avoid stress, and I was just trying to live and enjoy whatever time I had left.
But that’s not life, the life I’ve been trying to get back to since my cancer diagnosis. But the truth is, cancer changes you, and you’ll never be the same. I have been blessed in many unexpected ways along my cancer journey, and I have learned life lessons I never would have learned without going through cancer. I never would have learned to live like I was dying.
I am extremely lucky to be living and checking off my bucket list items since I was given a year to live after my diagnosis. I don’t know why I’m still here, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with writing. My grandma gave me a card when I graduated that read: Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. This quote is by Leo Buscaglia, and I still have it pinned to my writing board. I still have this unfinished business, this wish I’ve had on my heart for a long time. So, while I am living beyond the statistics, and by the grace of God am still here (one of the lucky ones able to thrive with a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, for whatever reason or purpose), I am going to live this new year, 2026, like I am not dying.
And, first, I want to thank Nikki, Andrew and Niall, and all the Hallmark actors there for Weekend Two of Hallmark’s Christmas Experience for being so kind, so generous, so down-to-earth, and so giving of their time away from their families, for just being themselves. They’re exactly who I imagined them to be, so much like the Hallmark characters they portray. Second, I want to thank Andrew for the great, big, wonderful hug he gave me! He had no idea how healing that was. And thank you Nikki and Andrew, especially, for being so inspirational to me in the past and this weekend. You will be inspiration for the characters I write during this next phase of my cancer journey, the one where I get scans yearly now. Thank you for making this girl’s dream come true and for reigniting a passion that cancer cannot take away. I’ll update again when I have my next port flush. Until then, stay safe and healthy, everyone, and … “live like you were dying.”
