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Have you ever been so busy surviving life that you never stopped to heal from it?

You know what I mean. Life throws something devastating your way, and somehow you find the strength to get through it. You pick yourself up, put one foot in front of the other, and keep going. And before you know it, another storm comes along.

For Kimberly Foley, life has been a series of storms.

She endured years of infertility and five rounds of IVF before finally becoming the mother of two beautiful boys. Then came open-heart surgery while her children were still very young, followed by a devastating divorce that left her raising those boys on her own.

And through it all, Kimberly did what she had always done.

She kept swimming.

She became the protector, the provider, the one who held everything together. There wasn't time to fall apart. There wasn't time to process the pain. Her children needed her, and that was enough to keep her going.

But years later, when her boys were grown and she was finally beginning to discover who she was beyond motherhood, another wave came crashing in.

Breast cancer.

A double mastectomy. Twelve rounds of chemotherapy. The loss of her hair. And eventually, the news that she would need a hysterectomy.

But something unexpected happened during her cancer journey.

All those emotions she had packed away for decades began rising to the surface. And during You Night's Candle Pass experience, surrounded by women who understood what it meant to carry invisible scars, Kimberly discovered something she had never given herself permission to do.

She could stop being strong for everyone else. She could finally let someone be strong for her.

Her story, Sink or Swim: Becoming the Shore, is about a woman who spent her entire life building boats to survive the storms, only to discover that surviving and healing are two very different things.

And perhaps the greatest revelation of all?

She wasn't simply the woman who kept everyone afloat.

She was the shore.

This is Kimberly Foley.

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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