‘I always try to better myself and push myself to do what I love and not let anything get in the way of that, but first I had to learn how.’

Point Lookout

“I originally lived in Merrick, but when my parents got divorced, my mom and I moved to Las Vegas after junior high. I got in with the wrong crowd, dropped out of school in ninth grade and got hooked on methamphetamine. I was addicted for two years, but one day I woke up and was like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ I wanted to go to rehab, so my mom sent me back to live with my dad in Point Lookout. I always try to better myself and push myself to do what I love and not let anything get in the way of that, but first I had to learn how.

“After coming home, I was a 17-year-old freshman at Long Beach High School, but graduated in two years. I went to day and night school; they let me go to summer school. I went to a class early in the morning and did four years of high school in two years.

“I met my ex-husband in high school. We tried everything in the world to save our marriage, and it was just something that wasn’t doable. Although my ex and I chose to separate for some time, we quickly found out that it would be best to move back in with each other, co-parent and raise our kids together. We became friends and focused on what we created together, realizing our children meant more to us than anything else in the world. We both came from broken homes and did not want the same for them.

“My mother was a single mom, working three jobs and struggling while doing everything in her power to give us the best life. I always know there’s someone there to back me up, so I don’t think I deserve the title of single mother.

“I became a firefighter at 18. I was the only girl at the Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department. My father, grandfather, cousins, uncles and my ex are all firefighters. I joined because my dad had no boys, so I had to keep the family tradition alive, and mother always taught me, ‘Anything boys can do, girls can do better.’ I was up for the challenge. I even ran for fire commissioner at age 21.

“I was also employed as an EMT on an ambulance but have served as a volunteer firefighter since 1999. I once ended up fighting a fire while pregnant with my first son! Some people at the scene were screaming ‘No, you’re pregnant,’ and I was like, ‘But this house is on fire!’

That was the only time I thought I might not make it, like this disease was going to take my whole family away.

“While I was pregnant with my first son, I was feeling like something was wrong, and when I finally found a doctor who would take a chance and give a pregnant woman an MRI, a huge tumor was found right on top of my carotid artery in my head. Surgery while pregnant is risky, so they waited until my son was born. It was a very calcified tumor, so when they broke into it, I bled out and flatlined on the operating table. I ended up needing transfusions during the surgery. In the end, they left the tumor there. It’s benign, so I live with it, but there’s always a chance I could go blind because it’s sitting right behind my optic nerve.”

“When I tried to go back to the fire department, at first I was denied because of the tumor, so I got a lawyer. I fought from June through November of 2004 to get back, and once the lawyer was able to get a neurologist to clear me, I returned to the department, only to soon find I was pregnant with my twins, so I had to leave again.

“Years later, when my oldest was 15 and my twins were 12, I would be diagnosed with Stage 3 rectal cancer at the age of 38. I was having problems with my head tumor, which was making my eyeball protrude from my face for no apparent reason, and an MRI found new tumors around my maxillary sinus. The doctors didn’t want to touch those after what happened during my previous surgery, and I naturally started stressing out. I developed stomach issues and started bleeding, so I thought I might have a stress ulcer, but after a colonoscopy, they found the rectal cancer.

“On top of that, my father and aunt were also suffering from cancer at the same time. I was diagnosed on April 8 of 2019. My father passed on July 1 that year, and then my aunt died Aug. 30. Between treatments, I was flying down to see them, doing my best to take care of them. I was literally laying on top of my dad as he took his last breath. That was the only time I thought I might not make it, like this disease was going to take my whole family away.

“Can you imagine how hard that was? Fighting for my own life while watching them lose theirs?

Not many people can say they love what they do, but this lady here has been given a third chance at life, and I wouldn’t change a second of it.

“Luckily, my doctors were positive about the whole thing, saying that I was going to beat this, and my ex-husband, my family, my friends and the whole Point Lookout community supported me. I was rarely not smiling through the whole process. In the end, it gave me hope and made me realize what life was all about. I just got my second scan in October, and it was clear. I am now two years in remission.

“Due to complications from the brain tumor, I was having double vision and couldn’t drive. At that point, we decided I should be a stay-at-home mom. I was grateful, but quickly realized it was the toughest job ever. I had worked as a firefighter and on an ambulance as an EMT, but nothing was harder mentally than being in charge of a household. I was raising three beautiful children, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry for seven years, but when a restaurant opened only three blocks away from my house I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get a mommy’s-night-out kind of job for a couple of nights a week. I started as a server, but over time I realized I had more to offer. I started working more, and it became a job I loved, where I can walk through the doors and all my problems would go away. Fast-forward nine years to 2021, and the owners of the restaurant trusted me and made me the general manager in September, perfectly timed with my onset of midlife crisis.”

“At the same time, while I never lost my certifications to work in the fire department, I decided in November to go back to school and take the training again. I’m actually going with my firstborn, who is also joining the department. Despite being sick, I always kept up my certifications to be a Class A firefighter, but I don’t feel comfortable running into a burning building right now as things have changed over the past 15 years, so I’m taking the class so I can feel confident walking back into those firehouse doors again.

“Not many people can say they love what they do, but this lady here has been given a third chance at life, and I wouldn’t change a second of it. Everything happens for a reason. I’m one of the lucky ones to find my purpose.”

‘Instead of doing dumb things in the streets, I would just focus on my craft.’

Ronkonkoma

“I grew up in Central Islip, and I was always into art. Down the block from my house were an abandoned power plant and a psychiatric center. It was covered in graffiti, and I found a can on the floor, and I used it to write my name on the wall. Ever since that day, I fell in love with the medium of aerosol art.

“In ninth grade, my mom bought me an airbrush kit, and I started airbrushing my sneakers and clothing. Somebody started ordering shirts from me, which sparked my entrepreneurial journey. It got so crazy that I would be late for every class because I was taking everybody’s orders. I got in trouble with the principal, but they ended up giving me the school store to take orders.

“Growing up in my neighborhood, you can easily get caught up in the wrong crowd; a lot of my friends were getting kicked out of school or locked up. My escape from reality was art. Instead of doing dumb things in the streets, I would just focus on my craft. As soon as I graduated, I opened up a store in the Bay Shore mall, then Smith Haven and Roosevelt Field malls. I did that for a decade. Then Amazon became more present and the mall traffic died. It was a rough time, but I never gave up on my dream.

We’re showing the public that it started in the street, but you could take it wherever you have to go.

“I started teaching in the city. I was getting grants from Carnegie Hall and would run art entrepreneur workshops. I fell in love with helping troubled youth who needed direction and reminded me of myself. With my experience from teaching and running a business, I opened up my studio in Holtsville, Graff Lab Studio. After putting a lot of money into it, the pandemic happened. It was terrible. The whole year was just me there doing commission work, a few orders, but I didn’t open it to do that.

“We opened to teach, have an art school and do birthday parties. The internet got cut off, and I’m like, maybe this is not the right time. And then a few mom groups caught on to it, and it started blowing up as the world opened back up. It’s different from any other art studio because we’re teaching street art, graffiti and fashion. There’s a stigma when it comes to that kind of art. We’re showing the public that it started in the street, but you could take it wherever you have to go.”

Interviewed by Hannah Fusaro

‘Who would think that at this time in our lives … that we’d be moving forward with people excited to hear our story? Seniors are society’s silent asset.’

Bay Shore

“Seven years ago, I was asked if I knew of Ward Hooper, because there were similarities between his paintings and my photographs. I didn’t, so I checked him out on social media. He had posted a painting called ‘Long Island City,’ and it reminded me of an image, ‘Night Lights,’ that I’d created years earlier. I had tucked it away until I saw Ward’s painting. The next day, he posted a tulip demonstration from a class he taught. It just happened that I was getting ready to show my tulips exhibit at a gallery. I went to meet him a few weeks later. He was 85 and had been suffering with multiple sclerosis for 40 years at the time. He showed me paintings that he’d made many years earlier. I kept saying, ‘I have something like this at home!’ Soon, I brought my photographic images that were similar to his paintings. He suggested that I drive him to locations that had inspired him. I’d photograph them and see how they’d inspire me to create.

Since working with Ward, I’ve solidified a creative process that uses technology called Photo-Liminalism

“He began revisiting a happy time and became excited by what I was doing. After several months, he took me to Coindre Hall [in Huntington] to sketch. I was so taken by the building that I photographed it. It inspired Ward to paint again. Our relationship resembled that of artists Arthur Dove and Helen Torr, who lived and worked on the North Shore 75 years before us. Ward took me to their cottage in Centerport. I photographed it, and we each created our own image from it. Our story became more multifaceted. We began exhibiting our work and giving gallery talks together. We wrote a book called ‘Parallel Perspectives: The Brush/Lens Collaboration.’

“Since working with Ward, I’ve solidified a creative process that uses technology called Photo-Liminalism. I’ve been doing this since the ’90s, and it has taken this long to find a place where my work is understood and accepted. Working with Ward has made it gel. There’s been such gratification from my rejuvenating him and how he has helped me become so innovative.

“Who would think that at this time in our lives, when we’d each lost our spouses and people our ages are going into senior living, that we’d be moving forward with people excited to hear our story? Seniors are society’s silent asset. We’re vital parts of society.”

‘When people ask about my style, I say, “It changes every day.” Dressing up is an art. Getting dressed in the morning is my favorite part of the day.’

Old Bethpage

“My mom always reminds me, from the moment I could start picking out my outfits, I never let her dress me. It’s been my choice with how I want to express myself. I always find myself shying away from the norm and trying to do something that is special to me and allows me to stand out; fashion is my outlet for that. Right now, I’m a senior at the University of Wisconsin in Madison studying textiles and fashion design with a minor in entrepreneurship. I’ve always been obsessed with fashion and using that creativity to create work that you can put on your body. My high school fashion teacher inspired me. I loved how her wardrobe was so unique to her, and I wanted to create my own style like she did. I always got dressed up for high school and I won the ‘best dressed’ superlative.

“When people ask about my style, I say, ‘It changes every day.’ Dressing up is an art. Getting dressed in the morning is my favorite part of the day. I have so much fun styling, so I think that’s really where it all clicked, because that great feeling of getting dressed up is something that I want everyone else to feel. One of my past projects, ‘The Modern Woman,’ has a focus on the way women are displayed and how there’s more underneath than just our physical appearances. I highlighted the areas of the body that are most commonly oversexualized. I did the breasts, the groin and the thigh areas as see-through sections masked underneath by an undergarment so you couldn’t see the features. I wanted to bring awareness that we are more than just that.

“I also worked on one called ‘Embrace Your Body,’ which is about body positivity. I was inspired by social media and how people are constantly editing their photos by blurring out their cellulite and overall, just not embracing the bodies that they’re blessed with. I created a jumpsuit and used faux fur that was corded and I put it from the waist down to the knees in a jumpsuit style so it looked like rolls. I wanted to embody the cellulite that so many women have, and that it’s normal and it’s beautiful. I wanted to showcase that we’re all human underneath, and that what you see on social media is great, but it’s not the full story.

I love dressing up and being on trend, but I also don’t want to hurt the environment and create more clutter.

“I only learned how to sew during my freshman year of school. The first class I ever took was an introductory sewing class. I went in not knowing much. I knew how to draw and that I liked to buy clothes and dress up, but that was about it. One challenge I faced was during last year, when classes were virtual. I had to make everything in my bedroom. That was really hard. I was so used to the atmosphere of being with professors and friends and bouncing our creativity off each other, so it was isolating doing it alone.

“Last year when COVID hit, I started a mask business where I donated to hospitals and offered them to health care providers and front-line workers. Large retailers weren’t selling them yet, so I had a lot of people in my community asking me for masks, and over the course of a few months, I ended up raising $2,000 for No Kid Hungry and sewed 2,000 masks. I also used recycled fabrics and materials, and it felt so good to give back and make people feel safe in my masks.

“Most of my ideas are spur of the moment. I get my best ideas when I’m falling asleep and constantly find myself reaching over to my phone to make a note of it. Then, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I make a mood board, and I go into a hole of thoughts of what I want, and I’m like, ‘That’s it.’ When I design a garment, I think about who’s going to wear it. What will her personality be, how does she walk, where is she going tonight? That all goes into play when I’m looking for a photo op. The collection I’m working on now is all about personal growth. I’m starting out the collection with muted colors and simple silhouettes. Then, as it goes on, growing and evolving with volume, ruffles and other embellishments that represent the experiences that you’ve had, the places you’ve traveled and the friendships and relationships you’ve made along the way.

“I want to play with color, prints and volume to show the change of becoming more confident in yourself. ‘Luxe Leader’ was a collection I made last year about how anyone can have the power to influence, no matter who you are – your race, gender, ethnicity, economic status – you still have the power to lead a room, voice your opinion and have people’s heads turn to look at you. I’m into footwear right now and would love to go into design or be part of a concept team, or maybe even be a photography stylist.

“In the future, I hope to have my own brand. I’m torn between glamor and luxury, but also being down-to-earth. I love dressing up and being on trend, but I don’t want to hurt the environment. I’m still figuring out what I want to do with my passion and how I want to have an impact on the industry and the world.”

‘Pianos and cars are both mechanical devices that lend themselves to disassembly, and hopefully, reassembly.’

Glen Cove

“I grew up in a tenement in Manhattan’s San Juan Hill neighborhood, demolished in the ’50s to build Lincoln Center. Whenever my mother went visiting, she took me along. Everybody had a piano in those days, so I entertained myself fiddling around on the keys. I wanted a piano, but we had no space or money. When I was 19, I took over a gas station, and in a few years, I owned an auto body shop in Glen Cove. I repaired all brands from Ford to Rolls Royce.

“I had just finished painting a Corvette a special color, blue pearl. Months later, the owner showed up saying sheepishly, ‘I had an accident with the car.’ I was very upset that all this beautiful work got destroyed. Though depressed, I continued working on automobiles. I don’t often remember my dreams, but one Saturday night I had a dream of only a woman’s name written in yellow script in the black sky. Sunday night, I called information in all the boroughs and finally found a listing by that name in Brooklyn. A woman answered the phone. To make a long story short, we made a date for dinner, we had a bite and talked, but never got beyond that night. She was just a catalyst.

Never deprive a child of what he wants because someday he might overcompensate.

“The movie ‘The Sting’ had come out, and there was a guy at the restaurant playing ragtime on a big upright piano. He was a piano restorer and dealer. We became friends, and I kind of morphed into the piano business, working on pianos in my house. I’d go out and buy what I thought was a good piano, drag it home in my pickup truck and fix it up. As a boy I used to take everything apart to see how things worked. Pianos and cars are both mechanical devices that lend themselves to disassembly, and hopefully, reassembly.

“I started buying, restoring and selling pianos, and when I had 11 in my house, I needed a larger place to work on and sell them. A friend with a storefront operation in Sea Cliff sublet me a space. In 1977, I found the place that I have now. I started off with a small space and kept taking over more space until I had most of the building. Today, I have over 700 pianos in four locations, including my Glen Cove store, The Piano Exchange. The moral is: Never deprive a child of what he wants because someday he might overcompensate.”

‘I always had a strong faith in God and always asked him for help, which he always gave me.’

Mastic

I have nine children and my husband had a good full-time job as a computer systems administrator for the IRS. He was also a part-time pastor of our church, and I homeschooled, so we were crazy busy. He was a big help in raising the kids; he was a hands-on dad.

“For the babies, he would change diapers. He would help the kids learn the capitals of states. He was better at science and math than I was, so he would help with that. Occasionally, he’d have to take weeklong trips for work training and that was difficult.

“I always had a strong faith in God and always asked him for help, which he always gave me. Miraculously, I’d get through those weeks where he [my husband] was gone for work. And then a day came when suddenly he passed away at age 54. He passed away from a heart attack, and we had no idea that he had heart trouble.

“My children were ages 5 to 18. I remembered back to those weeklong periods, where I would say, ‘Wow, can I do this by myself?’ and God gave me the grace to do it. So, there I was with nine children that I had to continue raising myself. My whole married life for 20 years, I’d have an anxious thought: What if Bill was gone?

I always had a strong faith in God and always asked him for help, which he always gave me.

“At one point, I had that thought, and God spoke to me and said, ‘If you lose Bill, I’m going to help you with everything.’ That was a day or two before he passed away. Until that day, I never felt God speak to me in response to that thought.

“My husband has been gone 20 years now, and I have always remembered God assuring me, and that has helped me go forward. My husband was a very responsible person. He had very good life insurance, and he had a good federal pension, so I didn’t have to go to work or lose my house.

“When my kids got older, I wanted to work because I had time, so I started volunteering, and now I’m a preschool teacher’s assistant. People laugh at that. They say, ‘Really? You had all those kids all those years and you still want to work with kids?’

“The truth is, I’m really cut out for that. I have the patience you need when you work with babies and preschoolers. It’s very rewarding because I love those kids when I’m there with them, and I want to help them, give them whatever they need.”

‘We all carry our indigenous culture with us, and now we are reclaiming our identity.’

Central Islip

“In 2013, I was asked to rescue Long Island’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade when the organization that had been running it had no money to cover the expenses.

“Rescuing the parade gave me the opportunity to invite new Latino cultural groups that today make up the community. It is a parade of Latin American nations where we honor the Puerto Rican pioneers, and we open the doors to celebrate new immigrants from Latin America.

“At our last parade in June 2019, before COVID-19, we had over 78 groups with 3,000 parading. A multigenerational and multicultural crowd of over 50,000 people, including tourists, gathered across Fifth Avenue in Brentwood to enjoy traditional Puerto Rican and Latino dances, floats and food.

“I am hopeful to be back in 2022 and celebrate our culture again. Saving the parade was giving back to the community its history, its culture, its dances, its laughter, for which I will always be very proud. I have also fought hard to rescue our art center.

… we transformed the abandoned space into a cultural center with an art gallery and backyard flower garden with a stage for outdoor performances.

“When Teatro Yerbabruja, the theater group I founded in Puerto Rico, needed a permanent home on Long Island, a local immigration lawyer helped me to find an abandoned building on Carlton Avenue in Central Islip’s downtown. The building and its backyard were being used by local gang members. I was not there to police people because I understood the history of why they were there. So, I became friends with them and convinced them to move. They understood what I was doing was good for the community. Eventually, we transformed the abandoned space into a cultural center with an art gallery and backyard flower garden with a stage for outdoor performances. In 2016, our center was shut down because the town declared the building unsafe. In 2019, however, Teatro Yerbabruja was invited to a new headquarters – the Second Avenue Firehouse Gallery and Event Space in Bay Shore.”

“The community organization that restored the building loved what I was doing and the diversity of my audience. We have a gallery and performing space, a studio with creative space for artists and a backyard garden.

“On Oct. 11, we kicked off the National Endowment for the Arts “Big Read Long Island,” an ongoing project with the Shinnecock Nation. We had an Indigenous People’s Day celebration, an art show, an open mic and a reading by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

“All the artists that work with me have indigenous roots — Inca background from Ecuador, Aztec from Mexico, Maya from El Salvador, Mapuche, from Chile. We all migrated to Long Island in the same way native Americans were pushed onto reservations. We all carry our indigenous culture with us, and now we are reclaiming our identity.”

‘My mother is a powerful force that raised twin girls with every ounce of strength she has. It wasn’t an easy road. My twin sister has cerebral palsy and epilepsy.’

Smithtown

“My mom owns women’s clothing boutiques in Smithtown and Commack. Her primary mission is to make every woman feel valued and great about themselves. I’ve seen that in my own life.

“My mother is a powerful force that raised twin girls with every ounce of strength she has. It wasn’t an easy road. My twin sister has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. My mom lost her mucus plug for unknown reasons, which caused her to have us early.

“My sister and I were born 1 pound, 11 ounces. We were supposed to be born on Halloween, and we were born in July, so you can guess how premature we were.

“I was born first. I was purple and I had issues in my lungs, so my mom didn’t see my face for maybe a week because I was in the incubator with my head turned away.

“My sister was born typical, but within a month she had a brain bleed, resulting in the right side of her brain essentially becoming destroyed. My mother had to witness the heartbreak of eight brain surgeries on my sister.

At the core, my mom is the one who has always been there and is largely why my sister and I are the way we are.

“When I was 5 years of age, my mom got divorced. She and my father married other people, then divorced again. So, now, I also have a stepfather who helped raise us and is still extremely involved in our lives, as well as my biological father and my mom’s boyfriend.

“It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but our blended family is an extremely solid foundation for a support system. At my college graduation, all six of us, plus grandparents, sat together at dinner. We all get along quite well.

“At the core, my mom is the one who has always been there and is largely why my sister and I are the way we are. We are both 22 now. My sister is bubbly, positive and cheerful. You love her the second you meet her.

“My mother ensured that she never felt different or ‘less than’ because of her disability. Now that I’m home, I see how hard my mom works to make my sister the focal point of the whole house. My sister is a part of every bonding activity, laughing along with every joke, every story.

“My sister has taught me patience and grit. She relies a lot on her iPad for entertainment. One song she loves is ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey. She has a harder time reading and writing than other people, but if you help her spell out the name of her song and she finds it, the smile that comes over her face is amazing.”

‘That was a big shift in my life, and I became a lot more grateful and happy, understanding how close life and death are.’

Brentwood

“I always try to have a positive energy. Growing up, my two sisters passed away, and I never knew how to handle it. Then I got into a bad car accident around 2015, but I was in great spirits.

“I remember being in the hospital talking to my dad and my brother and laughing and telling jokes. I realized I had two angels watching me. That was a big shift in my life, and I became more grateful and happy, understanding how close life and death are.

“My parents worked two jobs for most of my life, so from a young age I knew nothing was free, everything comes at a price, whether it was the price of time, the price of comfort.

I had to become a creative thinker and help people be able to move forward. People were afraid with all their chips on the table with buying and selling a house.

“My brother helped raise me and gave me the never-quit mentality. He helped me with my homework; that was where the sit-down-and-figure-it-out mentality came from.

“I got into real estate because one of my cousins became my mentor and got me into entrepreneurship at a young age. I graduated from college and was working in banking when I got my real estate license.

“My cousin kept giving me encouragement, and we ended up teaming up in real estate, which is now a passion of mine. I quit my full-time job to go full time in real estate. My first month out, I found out I was having a son. It was a blessing; it was a big push in my career, to go harder and give it my all.

“I had a great year and then COVID hit, so then I was at home with a 1-year-old. Everyone’s fearing for their lives, but also the fear and anxiety of deals falling apart, mortgages can’t get approved.

“I had to become a creative thinker and help people be able to move forward. People were afraid with all their chips on the table with buying and selling a house. Now you have this boom — low inventory in houses and prices going up. I have to do a lot of explaining to the buyers. It’s been good for myself because I became a lot more well-informed about what’s going on in the market.

“My clients I consider family at the end of the day because we go through so much together. A lot of my clients come from past relationships, from banking. I used to box, so people come from inside the gyms. There’s a definite joy seeing someone get their first home, seeing someone sell and move up into a new home.”

‘It didn’t really hit us until we came home from the hospital with no car seat and with no baby.’

West Babylon

“I delivered my stillborn, beautiful baby girl, my first daughter, Diana Hope, on June 13, 2017, at 8:10 p.m. She was 4 pounds, 1 ounce, 18 inches long. She had dark hair and eyes, just like her dad. I woke up on that Tuesday morning and realized I hadn’t felt the baby move. I went to the doctor and heard those words no one should hear: ‘There is no heartbeat.’

“I was induced and had to go through eight hours of labor. It didn’t hit us until we came home from the hospital with no car seat and with no baby. Up until then, I had a textbook pregnancy. I had no risk factors. Stillbirth is not mentioned typically to patients. I knew it happened, but I just didn’t know how much. Stillbirth affects about 1 in 160 births and each year, about 24,000 babies are stillborn in the United States.

“When it happened to me, I needed to speak about it, share Diana’s story and speak her name. I wanted to keep her memory alive. I learned about the Star Legacy Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing pregnancy loss and neonatal death and improving care for families who experience such tragedies. I’ve been working with them to educate people about the warning signs and preventive measures for stillbirth. It’s a common myth that at the end of pregnancy, your baby’s movement slows down because they don’t have much room to move around. That’s not true. Actually, that is one of the warning signs of stillbirth, and it did happen to me. You have to pay attention to the baby’s movements and the pattern; that’s the most important thing. Sudden rapid movement is another sign.

“Since last year, I’ve been the New York metro chair for the Star Legacy Foundation. I enjoy speaking to others and hearing their stories about their babies. After I had Diana, I posted about it on Facebook, and I can’t tell you how many people messaged me and said either it happened to them or someone in their family or a good friend. They didn’t want to speak about it or they felt embarrassed.

I want people to know that you should take care of your maternal health. Ask questions, research.

“One of the projects that Star Legacy is working on is trying to reduce the stillbirth rate. They did it in Sweden, and we’re trying to mimic what they did. Another project is the Pregnancy Research Project, a study bringing together patients and researchers to advance knowledge and discover preventions and treatments for poor pregnancy outcomes. While there’s no predictor of who will have a stillbirth, the reason I had one was because of placental insufficiency. A sonogram is the only way to tell how your placenta is functioning. We’re hoping to make more sonograms readily available to women.

“Another reason this still happens so frequently is that the placenta is the most understudied organ of the human body. I have two other girls now, ages 2 and 3, and while I was frightened it would happen again when I was pregnant, I believed Diana wouldn’t let this happen again to me, even though I knew it was a possibility. I was confident in my doctors and felt very taken care of. I saw not only my OB, but also a maternal-fetal medicine doctor every two weeks, then every week later in pregnancy.

“After much testing after Diana, I learned I had a certain gene mutation which may have caused what happened to me. Lovenox, an anticoagulant, and baby aspirin helped with that in subsequent pregnancies. The problem is you are not tested for these mutations unless you’ve had a late-term stillbirth or three miscarriages or more. What got me through was to speak about my daughter and share her story. It was very important to me to have the people around me say her name and acknowledge she was a real person.

“I want people to know that you should take care of your maternal health. Ask questions, research. Another thing that I do is go into hospitals and educate nurses and other hospital staff about stillbirth. Most staff don’t even know what they actually can do, and I want to make a better experience for future-loss families. I want people to know that this is still a possibility in 2021. I want to honor Diana, and I want to honor your baby, too.”