For Monique Crow, family is everything.

She is a mother of three adult children, DeAundra, Johnathan and Brian, whom she calls her “heartbeats.” She is the baby of seven siblings, a proud auntie, a Gigi and the kind of woman who finds joy in making memories with the people she loves.

She is also approaching another milestone she is especially excited about: turning 60. But nearly ten years ago, Monique faced a milestone she never expected.

A Routine Mammogram Changed Everything

In 2016, at 49 years old, Monique went for a routine mammogram. She was diagnosed with Stage 1B invasive ductal carcinoma in her left breast.

“Hearing that I had breast cancer was one of the hardest things to hear,” she remembers.

Although genetic testing did not identify a hereditary link, breast cancer was not entirely unfamiliar to her family. Her Aunt Pauline, her mother’s sister, had also experienced breast cancer and undergone a mastectomy.

Additional testing determined that Monique was not a candidate for chemotherapy or radiation at the time. But because of the tumor’s location near her chest wall, her oncologist recommended a total mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy.

“That hurt too,” Monique says. “I cried a lot about that.”

Becoming a Flatty Baddie

Initially, Monique planned to have reconstruction following her left mastectomy.

Then came another decision. After talking with her plastic surgeon about reconstruction, breast size and the likelihood that achieving symmetry would be difficult, Monique began reconsidering what she wanted for her body.

Ultimately, she chose to have her right breast removed as well and remain flat. “And that’s how I became a Flattie Baddie,” she says. “I think it was the best decision that I’ve ever made.” It was a decision about more than surgery. It became part of Monique learning to live in, accept and eventually embrace a body that looked different than the one she had known before breast cancer.

Then Cancer Came Back

Following her initial treatment, Monique faithfully took Tamoxifen. Years passed. Then, in 2022, while showering, she felt something in the scar on her left side.nThe following year, she learned that her breast cancer had returned.

This time, treatment included surgery and 33 rounds of radiation. Today, Monique takes Letrozole. The recurrence forced her to confront breast cancer from a different perspective. She had already survived diagnosis, surgery and the emotional process of adjusting to her changed body. Now she had to face the disease again.

But one of the things she had learned the first time around was how she wanted to meet difficult moments.

Choosing How to Face It

When Monique was first diagnosed, she prayed for a long life. She did not view breast cancer as a death sentence. Instead, she asked herself a question that would continue to guide her: How am I going to deal with this? “I decided I was just going to deal with it positively,” she says.

She prayed. She encouraged herself. She leaned into gospel music, especially CeCe Winans. Her faith became an anchor. Another source of encouragement came through The Power of I Am, a book she has returned to multiple times throughout the past decade.

Its message helped Monique remember something cancer can sometimes make difficult to hold onto: who she was.

“I am strong.
I am loved.
I am enough.
I am healed.
I am.”

Those words became more than affirmations. They became reminders that her diagnosis did not get to define the entirety of her identity.

Finding Healing in Community

Monique has followed For the Breast of Us since its early days, and eventually became a Baddie Ambassador. For her, the community offered something she needed beyond medical treatment. “I love that there’s a safe space to meet other women and to share your experiences and your journeys and to encourage others,” she says. “I like that we’re making space for women of color.”

That representation became part of her own process of accepting her body after breast cancer. Seeing other women living, thriving and showing up fully after diagnosis helped Monique see possibilities for herself. “Mentally, emotionally, being able to just accept my body for what it is now, I’ve gotten a lot of that just by the community,” she says.

It is one of the reasons she now shares her own story.

Because somewhere, another woman may be facing a mastectomy. Another may be wondering whether flat closure is right for her. Someone else may have just heard the words “your cancer is back.”

And sometimes seeing another woman on the other side of that moment is enough to remind you that there can still be life ahead.

I Am

Almost ten years after her first diagnosis, Monique’s life contains much more than breast cancer.There are three children who remain her heartbeats. Brothers and a sister who still get to spoil the baby of the family. Nieces, nephews and God-grandchildren.

Nearly 29 years of caring for others through her career. Family gatherings and memories still waiting to be made. Clouds worth stopping to photograph. And a 60th birthday waiting just around the corner.

Breast cancer has been part of Monique’s life.

But it does not get the final word about who Monique Crow is.

She does.

I am strong.
I am loved.
I am enough.
I am healed.
I am.