Angel Moms Lumina Podcast

"If not us, then who?"-Sarah Bartosz

In the emotional conclusion of our conversation with Sarah Bartosz, we explore grief, resilience, love, and the extraordinary strength it takes to keep moving forward after unimaginable loss.

Sarah shares her journey of losing her beloved son, Jack, to neuroblastoma and later her husband, John, to complications from cancer treatment. Fourteen years into her journey with grief, she offers a perspective that every grieving parent deserves to hear: Our hearts don't stop growing after loss. We simply learn to grow more love around the people we carry within them.

Together, we discuss the different ways families grieve, why saying our children's names matters, and how moments of happiness can still exist alongside profound sadness.

We also share the remarkable work of Beat Childhood Cancer, an organization helping bring promising research into clinical trials and connecting families with potentially lifesaving treatment opportunities. Sarah's compassion personally helped Sasha access a treatment that once seemed financially and medically out of reach.

And we close with a powerful question from Sarah's late husband, John, that has stayed with us:

"If not us, then who?"

This episode is about more than surviving grief. It's about continuing to love, finding purpose in heartbreak, and honoring our children by making a difference for others.

To every parent navigating loss, every family fighting childhood cancer, and everyone wondering how to keep going: this conversation is for you.

Keep saying their names. Keep sharing their stories. Keep loving. 🤍

With love,

Julya & Tammy

A Special Thank you to Sarah Bartosz and the Beat Childhood Cancer Foundation

Angel Moms Lumina Podcast

🧡 Learn more about Beat Childhood Cancer: https://beatcc.org

#AngelMomsLumina #SurvivingTheUnimaginable #ChildhoodCancerAwareness #BeatChildhoodCancer #GriefAndLove #ChildLoss #CancerResearch #PediatricCancer #BereavedParents #ForeverOurChildren

Episode 3, Part 1: Surviving the Unimaginable with Sarah Bartosz

🕊️ How do you survive the unimaginable? And how do you find the strength to keep going when life has taken so much?

In this deeply personal episode of Angel Moms Lumina, Tammy and Julya sit down with Sarah Bartosz, a remarkable mother, cancer advocate, and woman whose life has been shaped by extraordinary love, unimaginable loss, and a commitment to helping others. 🤍

🎗️ Sarah shares her journey from working in cancer research philanthropy to facing childhood cancer as a mother when her young son, Jack, was diagnosed with stage IV neuroblastoma. After losing Jack, Sarah would go on to face the loss of her husband, John, to the long-term effects of cancer treatment, as well as her own breast cancer diagnosis.

🕊️ Together, three mothers who have lost children to cancer share an honest and emotional conversation about grief, hope, the difficult decisions families face, and the moments of love that stay with us forever.

Through it all, Sarah has continued to dedicate her life to helping families access potentially lifesaving treatments, including helping Julya's daughter, Sasha, receive a therapy that gave their family precious additional time together.

✨ This is a conversation about surviving, finding purpose in pain, and choosing to carry hope forward, even after the unimaginable.

🤍 Join us for Part 1 of this incredibly moving conversation.

When your child is diagnosed with cancer, everything changes in an instant—and suddenly you're expected to make life-changing decisions while your world is spinning.

In Episode 2 of Angel Moms Lumina, we share Sasha and Carrigan's very different diagnosis stories with Ewing sarcoma and osteosarcoma and discuss one of the biggest questions facing newly diagnosed families: If frontline treatment is the same everywhere, does it matter where your child is treated?

We talk about pediatric cancer specialty centers, second opinions, clinical trials, disease-specific experts, insurance barriers, and what we wish we had known on diagnosis day.

If sharing what we've learned can help even one family be one step ahead, then this podcast has served a meaningful purpose. 💛

For Sasha and Carrigan. Stay in the light.

#ChildhoodCancer #ChildhoodCancerAwareness #PediatricCancer #PediatricOncology #EwingSarcoma #Osteosarcoma #Sarcoma #ClinicalTrials #CancerResearch #CancerParents #CancerMom #SecondOpinion #AngelMoms #LuminaPodcast

Welcome to the very first episode of Lumina.

Lumina was born from the light of two extraordinary girls—Carrigan and Sasha—and from the friendship of their mothers, Tammy and Julya.

In this opening episode, we introduce the moms and angels behind Lumina. We share the stories of our daughters, the courage with which they lived, and the beautiful legacies they left behind.

We also talk honestly about childhood cancer, caregiving, grief, advocacy, and the community that carried us through the unimaginable.

Most importantly, we share our hope for Lumina: to create a place where families can say the hard things out loud, share their experiences, learn from one another, and feel less alone.

Carrigan and Sasha were fighters, artists, and advocates. Through Lumina, we will continue sharing their light—and make room for others to share theirs.

In this episode:

Meet hosts Tammy and Julya

Hear the stories of Carrigan and Sasha

Discover the meaning behind the name “Lumina”

Learn why we created this podcast

Hear our hopes for the community we are building

Explore how we are continuing our daughters’ legacies

Please subscribe, share this episode, and join us as Lumina grows. If you have a story or topic you would like us to explore, we would be honored to hear from you (email [email protected])

Their lives were far too short—but their light will travel forever.