LaShae Rolle has always faced life’s challenges head-on — a skill she proudly inherited from her mother, Auby. In her mid-20s, LaShae was immersed in the demanding work of pursuing a Ph.D. in cancer prevention research at the University of Miami. But when Auby needed invasive knee surgery, her daughter didn’t hesitate to make room for another role: caring for her mother. During Auby's recovery, LaShae got news that would change both of their lives: At just 26 years old, LaShae was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Suddenly, mother and daughter found their roles shifting as LaShae went through treatment. What followed would inspire Auby to take control of her own health — ultimately losing 100 pounds to reduce her own cancer risk — while LaShae’s experience as a patient added a powerful new dimension to her work as a cancer researcher and advocate. Through it all, their shared faith gave them strength to support one another and deepened an already unshakable bond.
In an open letter to her mother, LaShae reflects on what her presence meant during one of the most difficult periods of her life.
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Dear Mummy,
Thank you. I never said it with everything I am about to say, all at once.
That thought has been sitting on my heart since the first day we arrived at chemotherapy. I was diagnosed at 26. No one in our family has ever had breast cancer. There was no warning. No map. No story passed down to prepare any of us. It came out of nowhere, at an age when I was building a life, not fighting for one. I thought I was going to fight cancer in a different way (solely through research), but it turns out this was my path. And you were beside me for all of it. There is so much I watched you carry that I never acknowledged out loud.
So here is me, telling you now.
You remember when we got the call.
We were at your doctor's appointment together. Just as we stepped into the room, about to hear from your doctor about your injury, my phone rang. We both knew what kind of call it was. Even though you were the patient that day, I made the best decision I could have for both of us. I stepped out. I did not want to overwhelm the room. But I already knew. I knew I was about to be told I had cancer. So, I sat down in the hallway, and I took that call, and you were inside, waiting to hear from your doctor. You probably had a feeling about what the prognosis was going to be. And after you received your own news that day (which was good), you received the worst and biggest news of the year. Maybe of the decade. We both needed each other at that moment, and neither of us said so.
I never told you how that one phone call changed all our plans. Not just mine.
I had to freeze my eggs. I had a mastectomy. Then chemotherapy. Then radiation. The days blended together. We had been going through something that felt like years, and it had only been weeks, then months, moving through different points of treatment one at a time. You had your own recovery to tend to, your own body healing from surgery, and yet you healed and you showed up anyway.
I never told you how sorry I felt for you.
No parent wants to watch their child go through what you watched me go through. I saw you overwhelmed. I saw you cry and try to hold it together at the same time. And I want you to hear this clearly: even if there were moments when you felt like you did not do enough, or did not do it right, you did the best you could. That is the truth. We both believe in God and believe that I got cancer because God knows I could handle it. He also knew you could handle watching your child go through this, and that it would not break you. It would build you. The same way that cancer helped me grow as a person, I believe it helped you grow as a mother, and as someone whose wisdom and experience will carry forward into the next generation. What you walked through was not wasted. None of it was.
I never told you what strength came to mean to me because of you.
Before cancer, I would have told anyone that you and my dad were two of the strongest, hardest-working people I know. After cancer, I understand strength differently. Strength is not just working hard when life is good. Strength is sitting in a room that terrifies you and staying anyway. Strength is continuing to go to work, continuing to provide, continuing to show up for your child even when you do not know what is best and you are simply doing everything you can. You did not have a roadmap either. You were figuring this out the same way I was. And you showed up every single time.
I am in remission.
I am still here, Mummy. Still on the path. Still becoming the person I was always meant to be, just with a testimony I did not expect. I am grateful for you. I am grateful for the strength you showed me. I am grateful that even in one of the hardest seasons of both of our lives, you sat in every chair, paid the bills, dried your tears as quickly as you could before you walked back into the room, and loved me the way only you know how.
Thank you. With everything I have and everything I am about to become.
I never said it all at once.
I am saying it now.
Your daughter,
LaShae
