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Today on Still I Rise, you’re going to meet a woman who describes herself through the image of a firefly—small, steady, and lit from within, flickering even when everything around her feels dark.

Our guest, Dawn Freret, was stepping into a new chapter: rebuilding after a painful divorce, raising her boys, and finding love again—ready to turn 50 and see it as the beginning of the second half of her story. But then a routine mammogram became a biopsy… and in February 2025, Dawn was diagnosed with Stage 2 HER2-positive breast cancer.

Before treatment could begin, her oncologist ordered a standard echocardiogram—just to make sure her heart could handle the drugs. What it revealed stopped everything: an ejection fraction of only 20 percent. Dawn felt fine. She was active. No symptoms. And yet she was in heart failure.

In an instant, she was carrying two diagnoses—breast cancer and congestive heart failure—and her cancer treatment paused before it ever started. For six long months, she had to wait as her heart became the priority, learning a new kind of bravery: trusting her doctors, trusting timing, and allowing people to hold some of the weight.

And along the way, Dawn learned to look for what she calls “glimmers”—tiny sparks of joy, gratitude, and peace that still appear in dark seasons.

This is Dawn’s story entitled "Dancing through the Darknesss". It's a story of resilience, vulnerability, and hope—of not just surviving the darkness… but learning to light it up and dance through it.

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Still I Rise features stories from You Night's STORY CRAFTING COMMUNITY. To read additional stories, visit our Facebook page:

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Welcome to Still I Rise, where we celebrate women who have walked through the darkest seasons and found a way to bloom again. Today, we step into the garden of Kathy Cole — a woman whose life has always been rooted in soil, color, and connection. From planting vegetables with her dad to creating Friendship Gardens in every home she’s lived in, Kathy has always believed that growth is something we share.

But in 2020, Kathy’s world shifted into a harsh winter. For months, she couldn’t clear her throat. As a mammographer, she worried — worried she might be sick, worried her coughing would alarm her patients, and worried something deeper was wrong. One sleepless night, guided by instinct, she picked up a flashlight, shined it into her mouth… and saw the tumor that would change everything.

The diagnosis was staggering: spindle-cell/sclerosing rhabdomyosarcoma, an extremely rare cancer more commonly found in males and almost never seen in adults. When she finally found a medical team who sort of knew how to treat it, they told her something unimaginable — that they could find only three cases like hers in the entire world.

What followed was a storm of surgeries, chemo, radiation, a tracheostomy, a feeding tube, and 126 days in the hospital during COVID — alone, afraid, and fighting for every breath. And yet, even in that deep winter, hope bloomed. A friend from Hawaii shared a dream of Kathy healed, wrapped with a scripture printed over a yellow dinner-plate dahlia — the flower her father once tended with pride. It became her sign that the garden wasn’t done with her yet.

With the unwavering love of her daughters, Morgan and Miranda, Kathy slowly began to root herself back into life, rebuilding her strength, her voice, and her spirit. And she learned this truth: if something isn’t growing where it is, you can move it… water it… tend it… and choose to bloom again.

This is Kathy’s Garden.
This is how she still rises.

#spindle-cell/sclerosing rhabdomyosarcoma

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Still I Rise features stories from You Night's STORY CRAFTING COMMUNITY. To read additional stories, visit our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/YouNightStories. Would you like to participate in a 6-week Story Crafting small group experience so that you can share your story? Write to us at teamyounight@gmail.com

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Some women survive storms.
But Kelli Beckman has weathered entire skies.

For much of her life, Kelli coped by imagining herself tethered to a hot-air balloon, floating safely above the clouds. When joy called—marriage, children, a career—she’d lower her lines and touch the ground. When life hurt, she drifted back up.

But over time, her balloon developed a leak. Divorce, the death of a parent, the loss of a job, and the passing of her best friend all struck at once. And then, at just thirty-six, she heard the words no mother of four—one still a baby—ever expects: cancer. She floated through treatments, surgeries, and fear, praying for the clouds to part. They didn’t. Still, she survived.

Years later, she faced her fiercest storm: stage 4 cancer. Her doctors told her to get her affairs in order. Had she accepted that as her ending, she would have missed the life God still intended for her. She lived to see another Christmas—one she wasn’t expected to reach—and realized she hadn’t gone above the storm. She had gone through it.

One of her greatest lessons came from a friend offering to help. Kelli, fiercely independent, resisted. Her friend gently said, “When God places it on someone’s heart to help you—let them. If you don’t, you’re blocking their blessing.” That truth changed her.

More hardships followed, including the heartbreak of her husband leaving. There were more recurrences, more setbacks—but also more miracles. She watched two sons marry. She heard little voices call her “Grandma.” She saw her youngest begin college. All moments she would have missed… if she had listened to the doctors.

Kelli’s journey reminds us that faith doesn’t always lift us out of the storm—sometimes it strengthens our legs to walk through it.

And no matter how many times life tried to pull her down…

Still, she rises.

Support the show

Still I Rise features stories from You Night's STORY CRAFTING COMMUNITY. To read additional stories, visit our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/YouNightStories. Would you like to participate in a 6-week Story Crafting small group experience so that you can share your story? Write to us at teamyounight@gmail.com