11/20/2025
I learned that today is World Pancreatic Cancer Day. My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer at 62 and made it just over a year before passing this past August. As an entrepreneur, a mom, and an eldest daughter (iykyk), balancing this past year felt impossible. It was only remotely doable because of the incredible teammates and freelancers who carried so much alongside me. Every spare moment, Alita and I were flying back and forth to Wisconsin to be with her, and I can’t count how many work calls I took pacing the halls of chemo treatments, doctor appointments, and eventually the hospice house.
I’m unbelievably proud of the work our team delivered during that time, but I also know I dropped a lot of balls. We missed opportunities, ideas we could have pursued, and ways we could have pushed further. Ultimately, I scaled back and simplified our offerings to the core of what we do best: customized flower bar experiences.
I’ll forever have my mom to thank for the “uniqueness” of this business. A few years before her diagnosis, when she was living with us, I bought a Cricut and told her, “If you can figure this out, I think we could do something cool.” My mom, who did not love computers, somehow mastered it and taught me and eventually the team how to do what became our brand differentiator.
Why a post about my mom and business? Because to know my mom was to know she loved an idea. From my first lemonade stand to my many failed ventures, to Alex’s pool business (another story), to Hello Flower Bar, she was always all in. When I left for college at 16 (also another story), she decided, as a single mom, that she was going to college too. It took me decades to understand how incredible that was. I recently found one of her college papers where she wrote about all the businesses she dreamed of starting. There wasn’t a single idea she wasn’t excited to brainstorm.
So today, on World Pancreatic Cancer Day, yes, we’ll be donating to help solve one of the world’s cruelest diagnoses. But more than that, I want to challenge you: think of an idea you want to start, or maybe one you’ve already begun, and tell us about it. My mom would have loved to hear it.
