Brittney Beadle

Brittney Beadle

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Brittney Beadle was eighteen years old when doctors told her that she had Stage IV breast cancer, and she spent the next eleven years making sure that diagnosis never got to decide how her story ended.

Brittney Beadle passed away this week at 29. But the more you learn about how she lived, the harder it becomes to think of this as a story about what cancer had really took from her.

At eighteen, most people are thinking about college and what comes next. Brittney was learning she had a disease that would follow her for the rest of her life. She chose to follow it right back and see how much living she could fit in alongside it.

She walked in New York Fashion Week. She wrote and published a book to help other cancer patients find hope. She converted a van into a tiny home and traveled to more than twenty-five states. She landed her dream job at Universal Studios in Florida. She bought her dream home. And she married the love of her life, Patrick.

Months before she passed, she was still showing up for others in the metastatic breast cancer community, reminding them they were not alone. She once wrote that cancer can reveal a deeper kind of love, one that holds you through uncertainty and grows stronger because of it. She was not describing a theory. She was describing her own life.

Her family said she chose joy even when life gave her every reason not to.

Funeral services are this week. Patrick and her family are surrounded by a community that is grieving and grateful in equal measure.

If Brittney's story stayed with you, what is the one thing about how she lived that you want to carry forward in your own life?