Mojo and the Mess

Cancer has a way of making your world very small.

At first, everyone shows up. There are messages, flowers, meal trains, promises, prayers. People tell you that you will never have to do any of it alone. They say, “It takes a village,” and for a little while, it almost feels like you have one.

Then treatment keeps going.

The updates become repetitive. The bad news stops shocking people. Another scan, another spot, another medication, another part of your body that no longer belongs entirely to you. People still care, but their lives keep moving. They go back to work. They take vacations. They make plans six months from now without having to wonder whether they will be healthy enough to get out of bed, or whether they will even be here.

Meanwhile, your life gets smaller.

It becomes infusion rooms and pharmacy lines. It becomes lab results you know how to read before the doctor explains them. It becomes keeping nausea medicine in every room and measuring time by treatment cycles instead of seasons. It becomes knowing which side of your body hurts less to sleep on. It becomes conversations with your husband that no couple should have to learn how to have.

People hear that I have cancer and imagine the visible parts. The bald head. The hospital bracelets. The port. The scans. They do not always see the isolation that comes with it. They do not see how lonely it is to keep living while parts of your life disappear one by one.

Cancer took pieces of my body. It took my fertility. It took my certainty. It took the careless way I used to imagine the future. It changed my marriage, my friendships, my plans and the way I look at time. It introduced me to a version of myself I never asked to meet.

And somewhere in all of that loss, I decided to build something.

I built The Village because I know what it feels like to need one.

Not a room full of people telling you to stay positive. Not another place where you have to perform strength or package your pain into something inspirational. Not an event built around pretending cancer is beautiful.

I wanted to create a place where nobody had to explain why they were tired. Where someone in active treatment could sit beside a survivor, a caregiver, a child, a spouse or someone newly diagnosed and feel understood without having to tell the whole story first.

I wanted cancer patients to have one day that was not centered around an appointment.

One day with laughter that did not feel guilty. One day where their families could make a memory that did not happen in a hospital. One day where the people caring for everyone else could feel cared for too. One day where useful resources were in the same place, help felt human, and nobody had to earn kindness by being brave enough.

The Village began as an idea, but it quickly became tables, phone calls, sponsor checks, emails, floor plans, survival kits, banners and a thousand tiny decisions. I have worked on it after chemo. I have answered messages while nauseous. I have planned it from bed, from waiting rooms and on days when my body was begging me to stop.

There have been moments when I have wondered what I am doing.

I am building an event for the future while living in a body that has made the future feel uncertain. I am making plans for October while knowing better than most that a date on a calendar is never a promise. I am putting so much of myself into a day I cannot control, because cancer has taught me exactly how little control any of us really have.

But maybe that is why I have to do it.

I cannot control what the next scan says. I cannot undo what cancer has taken. I cannot promise my husband that everything will be okay. I cannot give back the years, the children or the version of me who believed she had endless time.

But I can make a room feel less lonely.

I can put resources in front of someone who does not know where to turn. I can hand a survival kit to someone walking into the hardest season of their life. I can give a caregiver a few hours where they are not the only person carrying everything. I can create a space where children get to see their sick parent smiling. I can remind someone that they still belong to the world outside of cancer.

The Village is not a fundraiser disguised as a good deed. It is not a photo opportunity. It is not me trying to turn my illness into a neat little lesson about purpose.

It is much more honest than that.

It is me taking everything cancer made me feel and refusing to let another person sit in it alone.

I know an event cannot fix cancer. A day of music, food, resources, giveaways and laughter cannot make a scan clear. A survival kit cannot soften every brutal part of treatment. A room full of love cannot stop a disease from taking what it takes.

But it can interrupt the loneliness.

Sometimes that is where hope actually lives. Not in promises that everything will work out, but in somebody showing up while it has not. Not in telling a person to be strong, but in giving them somewhere safe enough to put the strength down.

That is the village I needed.

So I built it.

I built it for the person who has heard “let me know if you need anything” a hundred times and still does not know who to call. I built it for the caregiver who is falling apart quietly because all the attention is on the person who is sick. I built it for the survivor who is expected to feel lucky but is still trying to understand what happened to their body and their life. I built it for the family making normal memories under circumstances that are anything but normal.

I built it for the people who are still here, even if being here does not look brave or beautiful.

And, if I am honest, I built it for me too.

Because cancer made my world smaller, and I needed proof that I could still make something bigger than what was happening to me.

I needed to know that even if I could not save my old life, I could create a place where someone else felt held in theirs. I needed to turn the emptiness into a table with another chair. I needed to take every time I felt forgotten, misunderstood or alone and build the opposite.

The Village is the opposite.

It is a seat for you. A hand reaching back. A reminder that you do not have to be inspirational to be worthy of support. You do not have to be finished with treatment. You do not have to call yourself a fighter. You do not have to make everyone else comfortable with what is happening to you.

You only have to come as you are.

Sick. Surviving. Scared. Hopeful. Exhausted. Grieving. Laughing. Still figuring out what comes next.

There is room for all of it here.

Cancer made my village smaller.

So I decided to build a new one.

And now I am inviting you into it.

The Village by Mojo & The Mess will take place on Saturday, October 10, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM at the Lakeside Community Center, 1999 City Center Circle in Port Orange.

This is a free community event for anyone whose life has been touched by cancer. If you are in active treatment, if you are a survivor, if you love someone with cancer, if you are caring for someone through it, or if cancer has already taken someone you love, this day is for you.

Bring your spouse. Bring your children. Bring your caregiver, your best friend, your parents, or the person who has been sitting beside you through every appointment. Come meet local resources, connect with people who understand, enjoy the music, food, activities, giveaways and kids area, and let us make one day of this journey feel a little lighter.

You do not need to register. You do not need to prove you belong. You do not have to show up smiling, hopeful or strong.

Just come.

Come let us celebrate the people who are still here. Come remember the people who should be. Come find resources, laughter, connection and a room full of people who will not need you to explain why cancer changes everything.

I built The Village because I needed one.

On October 10, I hope you will come be part of it.