Why I Named My Blog “Ashes & Wildflowers”
Every name has a story. Mine grew from both loss and unexpected beauty.
The Ashes
Some names are chosen. This one was forged in survival.
In December 2024, I was sick with a virus, too weak to leave the house, wrapped in blankets, trying to keep up with everything while my body begged for rest. When the doctor called, I expected a simple update. Instead, I heard the words “there’s a mass.” It had been found accidentally. I wasn’t prepared.
I was alone when I got the news. The house was quiet and the silence felt heavy. The words knocked the breath out of me. I sat down before I could faint. I could feel my heart racing, my brain trying to figure out the logical follow-up questions and next steps. Nothing felt steady.
The 3 weeks that followed were the hardest part. Waiting for more information. Waiting for answers. Waiting for someone to tell me what my future looked like. I had to pretend everything was fine for my kids and carry on with Christmas cheer. They were so little protecting them came naturally. But what surprised me was the silence from the adults in my life. My parents and my brother were too scared to talk about it. Their fear created a quiet I didn’t know how to fill.
It is a strange kind of loneliness, being the one who is sick while everyone else is too frightened to say the words out loud. I didn’t need them to fix it. I just needed them to sit in the uncertainty with me. But fear makes people disappear in their own ways.
Those were my ashes. The phone call. The waiting. The silence. Carrying on with Christmas cheer like nothing was wrong while breaking inside. The season where everything familiar burned down, leaving me standing in the smoke, trying to figure out what came next.
The Wildflowers
But even in the burn, something tender had been growing.
Before I ever considered that anything was wrong, I had booked a short cruise for my daughter, Lily, and me for January 2025. It was meant to be a Mommy-Daughter trip. A little gift after a long year of newborn twins, sleepless nights, and having to divide my attention into thirds. After the diagnosis, my doctors told me to go on the cruise. So about halfway between the day everything changed and the day I would be taken into surgery, we sailed away.
There was a moment in Mexico, just the two of us sitting in front of a tiny ice cream shop under a grand umbrella, when time softened around the edges. The air was warm, the colors were bright, and Lily, barely 3 years old and still not speaking yet, was having the time of her life. For a few minutes, the fear loosened its grip.
The rest of the trip was simple and sweet. We made a Build-A-Bear kitty, got our nails done, ate pizza and ice cream, and wandered the ship together. Other cruisers left little ducks for her to find, something I didn’t even know was a tradition before this trip. She didn’t know what was happening in my body or how scared I was. She just knew she had Mama all to herself. And I think she needed that. She finally had my full attention after nearly a year of sharing me with two preemie baby brothers who had needed so much of my energy.
Looking back, that trip feels like a bloom that pushed through the cracks before I even realized the ground had burned. It was joy growing in the middle of fear. It was proof that love keeps blooming even when life feels uncertain. It was a reminder that my children were already becoming my wildflowers long before I had the words for it.
They have all grown over the nearly 2 years since the twins’ arrival, as individuals and together. Now, the kids hug each other goodnight. They check on each other when someone is crying. They play games together. They are still so small, but they already know how to love each other well. And every time I see them together, snuggled under a blanket watching Frozen, soft and sleepy, something in me settles. I won’t always be here with them, no matter what happens. But they will have each other. That truth blooms in me every single day.
These are my wildflowers. My daughter. My sons. The unexpected beauty that kept rising even when everything else felt scorched.
Life in the Middle
Beyond the garden of healing, I am a single mother raising three little ones while working full-time, and from the outside, my life looks easy. I move through my days with a kind of practiced steadiness. Spirit day outfits planned. Meetings attended. Workouts (hopefully) squeezed in. The bedtime routines handled with soft efficiency. I don’t complain. I don’t fall apart in public. I don’t look like I need help.
But I do sometimes.
There is a quiet weight to carrying everything alone. People see the competence, not the cost. They see the calm, not the calculations happening beneath it. They see the highlight reel. The kids hugging each other goodnight. The routines that look seamless. The strength that looks effortless. And they assume I am fine. And most days, I am. But that doesn’t mean it is easy.
My mornings start long before the sun, with coffee brewing while I prep waffles or pancakes and answer emails in the half dark. The twins begin chattering in their room. I get Lily ready and send her off on the bus, and the day begins before I have even had a chance to catch my breath. Evenings are a blur of exercise, dinner, baths, pajamas, and stories.
When the house finally settles, when the last light clicks off and the quiet returns, I often find myself sinking into a true crime podcast. Not because I am drawn to the darkness, but because I am fascinated by the resilience. The way people survive things they never saw coming. The way they rebuild. The way they keep going. It mirrors something in me.
And through it all, there is this steady hum of pride. My kids see a mom who keeps moving, keeps loving, keeps building a life for them even when the odds feel stacked. They see grit and grace in real time. Not as a performance, but as a rhythm. They see a woman who doesn’t crumble, even when she could. They see a mother who chooses them, every single day.
This is the middle. The place between the burning down and the blooming up. The place where life is messy and beautiful and exhausting and sacred all at once. The place where I am still learning, still growing, finding my footing. And somehow, even here, the wildflowers keep coming.
Your Turn
If you are here, maybe you have walked through your own ashes. Maybe you are still standing in the smoke, waiting for answers, waiting for clarity, waiting for the ground to steady beneath you again. Or maybe you are in the middle, juggling work and kids and routines. Carrying more than anyone realizes. Doing your best to keep moving even when the weight feels unfair.
If you want to pause and reflect on your own season of ashes and wildflowers, I created a gentle one‑page reflection sheet you can download. It is a simple space to notice what felt heavy, what bloomed anyway, and what you want to carry forward.
Wherever you are, I hope my story reminds you that you are not alone. Nobody expects a cancer diagnosis. But even in the hardest seasons, there are small, stubborn blooms pushing through the cracks. There is still joy. There is still softness. There is still time.
I hope you leave this space feeling inspired, steadied, and a little more optimistic than when you arrived. I hope you feel the strength in your own story. Not because everything is perfect, but because you are still here, still growing, still finding beauty in places you never expected.
What are you growing in your own season of change, in the ashes, in the wildflowers, or somewhere in the middle?
Let’s grow something beautiful together.
Share your story in the comments, or join my newsletter to grow this garden of resilience together.
“Like wildflowers; you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would.” — E.V. Rogina