Breast cancer has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

My first experience was when I was six years old, when my Aunt Pammy—my second mother—was diagnosed. I later learned that her tumor was 8 centimeters and that she wasn’t expected to survive.

I don’t remember everything from those years, but I remember her. Her humor. Her strength. I remember her letting us spike up her hair when it started growing back. That was Aunt Pammy—always finding a way to make the best of a crappy situation.

She survived breast cancer once, and then again. The treatments left lasting effects, but she never let them define her. Her strength is something I still try to carry with me.

Then, when I was 17, breast cancer came into my own home. My mom was diagnosed.

I remember her telling my sisters and me. I remember her shaving her head because she was tired of finding hair in her food. I remember the awful wig. And I remember my prom dress—a dress with what felt like a million layers of crinoline—and my mom, despite everything she was going through, still taking the time to hem it for me.

Because that's what moms do.

The summer after I graduated high school, I signed up for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I needed to do something. When someone you love has cancer, there is so much you can't control. But I could walk. I could raise money. I could fight back.

For the next decade, I did just that. With my mom beside me and my family waiting at the finish line, I raised more than $30,000. I even spent my 21st birthday walking in Boston on an Avon Walk.

Eventually, life changed. I got married, battled to become a mom, and life got busy. I stopped participating, but I never stopped missing it.

Now, in my 40s with two children and an incredible group of women who have become my chosen family, breast cancer has found its way back into my life.

Only this time, it's my friends.

My warrior ladies.

And it hits differently.

When one of them told me about this event, something came rushing back—the feeling that even when I can't fix it, I can do something.

So I'm walking again.

For my aunt.
For my mom.
For my friends.
For every family whose life has been changed by this disease.

I can't change what happened to them. But I can honor the women who fought before me, stand beside the women fighting now, and raise money to help provide access to care and support research so that, hopefully, fewer families have to experience what mine has.

This is my way of fighting back.

And I hope you'll fight with me.