Losing My Husband to Brain Cancer

How 'Reverend Tam' chose healing

[⇒ Watch Reverend Tamera's video interview here]

Before her world turned upside down, Tam lived a life that might sound familiar to many of us: a busy, bustling home in Southern California, full of children’s voices, school runs, work deadlines, and dinners around a crowded table.

She and her husband Joe had two kids together, a stepson and had fostered two children. Both Tam and Joe worked corporate jobs, holding everything together with the energy and hope of a typical American family.

They had been married for 18 years — a lifetime of ordinary moments that, looking back, feel like treasures. Then, in the early hours of one morning, everything shifted forever.

Joe had complained of a terrible headache, and when Tam got that 4:45 am phone call from the hospital, she answered expecting an update, maybe reassurance. Instead, she heard the words no one ever imagines: Joe had glioblastoma — one of the most aggressive and cruel forms of brain cancer. By 5 am, the life she knew was gone.

Overnight, Tam stepped into the role of full-time caregiver, not just for Joe, but for the children, the household, the emotional needs that rippled through every corner of their lives. Joe struggled, holding tightly to his dignity and fighting to stay the man he had always been. The cancer, however, moved relentlessly, stealing not just his health but eventually his memory and his sense of self.

Tam tried to hold everything together. She started journaling the journey on Facebook — at first just a way to cope, to pour out thoughts that had nowhere else to go. Over time, those raw, honest posts would become seeds of tools and insights she would later share with others facing unimaginable loss.

People would tell her she was brave. They started calling her Wonder Woman. But in those moments, she didn’t feel brave — she felt numb, exhausted, simply putting one foot in front of the other. Financial pressures closed in too. Her thriving career evaporated when she was laid off, leaving the family suddenly dependent on disability income alone. Shock carried her forward when nothing else could.

Two simple phrases people often offered her became deeply painful. “I’m praying for you,” they’d say, before disappearing. And “Let me know if you need anything,” as if she had the bandwidth to imagine needs or the energy to ask.

But she also witnessed what true, living prayer could look like. One friend arranged a meal train without asking permission — food simply appeared, removing one impossible decision each day. Another friend, seeing Tam lost and numb on the street after a long day of hospital treatments, didn’t say a word. She wrapped her in a long, silent hug, kissed her forehead, and whispered, “Always and forever, I love you most.” That moment of touch cracked something open, reminding Tam she was still human, still worthy of love beyond her role as caregiver.

Another friend didn’t ask how she could help — she just showed up, took over the schedule, and declared: “Tomorrow, my kids will drive your kids. My daughter will sit with Joe. You and I are going out for dinner. But first, I’m doing your laundry.” No questions. Just action.

When people said, “This is your new normal,” Tam wanted to scream. Normal changed every ten seconds. There was no stable ground.

As Joe’s condition worsened, Tam’s world narrowed to his needs and the children’s pain. Her eldest son gave up huge chunks of school to be by his father’s side. Her daughter needed trusted adults around her as her own world cracked open.

When Joe finally accepted that he was dying, the priority became his deepest fear: losing his dignity. Miraculously, in his last four days, the Universe granted Tam’s most desperate prayer. He passed quickly, with dignity intact, surrounded by all three of his biological children. Even in his final moments, she fought to honour his wishes — a final act of love after a lifetime of shared dreams.

After Joe passed away, Tam collapsed. One child described it as her “going to bed for two weeks.” Seventeen months of living on two hours of sleep a night caught up with her. She could no longer stand. Friends and family stepped in, feeding the kids, holding the edges of her world together as she lay in the depths of grief.

Her best friend invited her into a new ritual: when Tam woke crying in the middle of the night, she was to come over and curl up in bed together. “You don’t have to do this alone,” her friend insisted.

For months, life blurred. But Tam clung to a single guiding truth: “Trauma is change you don’t choose. Healing is change you do choose.”

Determined to preserve good memories, she began gathering small treasures - post-it notes Joe had left for the kids, over the years, conversations Joe and Tam had recorded together. One note, “I kissed you goodnight,” became a tattoo on her daughter’s wrist, a permanent mark of love.

During Joe’s illness, Tam had started her business, Enlightened Coach — not as a master plan, but as a lifeline. The work became a small refuge, a place where, even for a moment, she wasn’t only a caregiver.

When it came time to help her son heal, Tam made a controversial choice. She enrolled him in a military-style boarding school in Southern California. He was just 14, grieving in a storm of anger and acting out in ways she didn’t fully see.  Soon facing expulsion, every time he retaliated, the school sanctioned him with an additional mile to run. On the face of it, this appeared harsh, but what transpired was transformational. 

For every mile Tam’s son had to run, a different member of staff ran alongside him.  On the final mile, a two-star general who had survived cancer joined him. In that moment, something in her son finally cracked open, the healing beginning in a place neither of them expected.

Tam’s  daughter found her own healing through university life in Oregon, discovering her gifts and stepping into her own becoming.

Tam, meanwhile, realized she herself was not healing. In a moment of clarity, she decided to move to Bend, Oregon — a place she and Joe had once dreamed of. She didn’t know a soul, except that her sister owned a vacation home nearby. She was looking for community, for a place where she might be seen again not just as a widow, but as a whole person.

What she craved most was something she hadn’t expected: physical touch. Through Joe’s long illness, intimacy had vanished. After he died, she felt more alone than she had ever known was possible — always the extra seat at someone else’s table.

She began taking classes at Unity Church in Central Oregon, drawn first by curiosity, then by the warmth. Someone suggested she come on Sundays. Though she worried about dogma, she fell in love with the music, the openness, the human connection. Slowly, she stepped further in, co-creating talks, leading rituals, and rediscovering her voice.

Now, she is an Associate Minister — affectionately known as “the Hugging Reverend.” Hugs have become her ministry, her way of embodying love in action.

Through all of this, Tam carries a fierce gratitude. Gratitude for Joe’s dignified passing. Gratitude for the people who taught her that prayer is not just a word but a verb. Gratitude for the community that held her. For her daughter’s healing. For her son’s transformation. For the home she bought with her own strength in Oregon.

Tam sums it up simply: “Trauma is change you don’t choose. Healing is change you do choose.”

And if you meet Reverend Tam today, you’ll find a woman who radiates warmth and possibility, a woman who will likely greet you with a hug before words.  A woman who lives her mantra, “Gratitude, not attitude,” in every breath.

To contact Tamera:

Email - Tamera@YourEnlightenedCoach.com

Website - www.YourEnlightenedCoach.com