By: Larry Meador
When Survival Became my Personality
The older I get, the more I realize that life rarely falls apart all at once. Usually, it begins with something small… a phone call, a sentence, a moment that doesn’t seem extraordinary at the time until you look back years later and realize it changed everything.
For me, that moment came the Monday morning after Father’s Day weekend in 2004.
My Story
My name is Larry Meador, and this is a personal story that explores how my survival became my personality, and the effect it has had on my mental wellness.
Meador family picture in 2004,
right before our world changed forever.
That weekend had seemed mostly normal on the surface. We were at my parents’ house with our three kids swimming in the pool and enjoying the beginning of summer. But my wife Boni sat quietly at the edge of the water instead of getting in with them, which was unlike her. Boni was always involved, with the kids, with school activities, with life in general, and seeing her simply sitting there told me something wasn’t right.
For a couple of years, she had been dealing with recurring stomach pain that doctors believed was caused by ulcers. They prescribed different medications over time, and the frustrating thing was that they often seemed to help. The pain would ease for a while, which made it easy for all of us to believe the diagnosis was correct and move on with our busy lives. Looking back now, I think we wanted to believe it was something manageable because the alternative was too frightening to even consider. We had three young children, careers, school events, sports schedules, and all the normal chaos that came with raising a family. Serious illness was something that happened to other people.
Boni smiling before her illness.
The weeks leading up to Father’s Day had been especially difficult for Boni as she was seemingly in constant and growing pain. Once again, we assumed her “ulcer” was flaring up, likely aggravated by stress. She was deeply involved in planning end-of-year activities for all three of our children and their classmates at the elementary school where she volunteered constantly.
As the school activities finally finished, I finally convinced Boni to see a gastrointestinal specialist because the pain had become impossible to ignore. She begrudgingly went and, looking back now, I think she probably knew long before that appointment that something wasn’t right. Even then, though, I don’t think either of us could have imagined what was coming. Trauma does strange things to memory. Some parts of that period are blurry now, while others remain painfully vivid.
One thing I remember with absolute clarity is the way that doctor made her feel. He dismissed her concerns almost immediately, suggesting that someone her age and in such good physical shape was probably exaggerating her symptoms. To his credit, though, he still ordered an ultrasound and told us we’d receive the results by the end of the week.
How 30 Seconds Defined My Future
After Father’s Day weekend passed and no one had called, I phoned the office myself that Monday morning. I explained what the doctor had said and how much pain my wife had been in throughout the weekend. I still remember them putting me on hold, and I still remember the feeling in my stomach when they came back on the line and asked me to take her to the emergency room immediately because they had seen something on her pancreas.
Boni overheard enough of the conversation to know something was very wrong before I even walked into the room. And when I confirmed what they had said, she immediately broke down crying. A teacher our children adored had recently passed away from pancreatic cancer. I think that fear was already in Boni’s mind at that moment. I know it was in mine. Neither of us said the words out loud, but they were hanging heavily in the room between us.
We spent that entire day sitting in the emergency room waiting to speak with someone. Around six that evening, her GI specialist finally walked into the room and said something I will never forget.
He told Boni, “You know, I honestly thought you were overreacting when you came to see me. Someone your age and fitness level usually doesn’t have something serious wrong. But you have a tumor the size of a lemon on your pancreas, and it’s most likely pancreatic cancer.”
Then he told us to get our financial affairs in order because most people survived only around ninety days.
That was it. That was how our lives changed forever in all of 30 seconds.
I don’t remember much after that conversation. Trauma does strange things to memory. I remember Boni crying. I remember trying to stay calm because I felt like one of us had to. And I remember leaving that hospital knowing our lives had changed permanently.
We immediately started exploring our options and settled on a surgical approach to find out exactly what we were dealing with and just how bad it was. The surgeon explained he was going to perform a distal pancreatectomy. Essentially, he would make an incision that resembled a “candy cane”. It would start near her liver and go up under her breasts and down her left side. He estimated the surgery would take about 2 hours and that they anticipated removing about 20% of her pancreas. She was willing to do anything to get this under control and agreed to the surgery which would take place in just two short days.
On surgery day, I kissed her as they wheeled her back and for the next 5 hours I don’t recall sitting down once. I was kept updated throughout and was told things were going well but that it was taking longer than they anticipated. When the surgeon finally emerged, he sat me down to tell me they had removed 80% of her pancreas and that unfortunately, the tumor was intertwined with her portal vein and that they also had to perform a splenectomy to remove her spleen. They were going to run a biopsy on the tumor, but he told me that we needed to be prepared for what was most likely coming – a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
A few short days later that diagnosis was confirmed and the reality of what we would be facing next was staring us in the face. It was stage IV pancreatic cancer. The days immediately following the diagnosis felt surreal. We were still trying to maintain some sense of normalcy for the kids, but underneath all of it was this overwhelming realization that our future had suddenly become uncertain. Every quiet moment felt heavy.
Six weeks after having this major surgery, she began chemotherapy. The side-effects were brutal and despite this, she tried every chemo “cocktail” that was approved at the time. She agreed to explore clinical trials and applied for several and each resulted in a devastating realization. Every clinical trial we tried to pursue required her spleen to still be intact. The surgery intended to help her had unintentionally eliminated access to experimental treatments that might have brought her more time. I understood the reasoning scientifically, but emotionally it was brutal. When you’re sitting beside someone you love while they fight to stay alive long enough to watch their children grow up, every closed door feels deeply personal.
Keeping the Faith and Holding On
The next few months would become a desperate attempt to outrun something we both knew was eventually going to catch us. We sought second opinions. Third opinions. Thankfully, the internet had become mainstream enough by that point that I could spend nearly every waking moment researching treatment options, experimental therapies, and anything that offered even the smallest possibility of more time.
Despite being told she likely had ninety days left to live, Boni survived nine months. During those months, life became centered around milestones. She wanted to make it to her 40th birthday in November. Then make it through Christmas. Then she wanted to make it through each child’s birthday. January. March. April. Those dates became targets we emotionally aimed for together. Tiny victories in a battle that was getting harder by the week. Secretly, though, each milestone brought growing dread for me because every victory also felt like another quiet reminder that we were running out of future milestones to hold onto. I tried not to let her see that fear because this wasn’t about me. It was about helping her hold onto hope for as long as possible.
Here are some pictures of her “last moments” in life.
Sept 2004. Her last “First Day of School” Dec 2004. Our last Christmas together.
The Kids
Somewhere during all of that came the hardest conversation I have ever had in my life: telling the kids that their mom had a terminal disease. Boni insisted we tell the kids the truth. I didn’t want to because saying the words out loud somehow made everything feel more final. But she was right. She was wiser than I was throughout much of this journey. Our children were 7, 9 and 11 years old, and we had to sit them down and explain that their mother was dying.
There is no preparing yourself for a conversation like that. No handbook. No correct words. You’re trying to explain something emotionally catastrophic to children who still fundamentally believe their parents are supposed to keep the world safe. Each of them processed it differently – which I won’t go into here because that is their story to tell – not mine. Looking back, I think all five of us were simply trying to emotionally survive one day at a time.
Boni passed away on April 16th, 2005, at forty years old.
And in many ways, that’s when the real struggle began.
She did have a life-long dream that I am grateful we made come true. Boni dreamed of a Disney trip, and we made it come true 2 months before her passing.
Boni’s dream Disney trip, Feb 2005. 3 months before her passing.
The Struggle is Real
People often think grief is primarily emotional, but what I discovered is that grief is also intensely practical. It’s laundry. Grocery shopping. Homework. Mortgage payments. Permission slips. Car repairs. Doctor appointments. Trying to remember whether someone has a field trip tomorrow while your brain is still replaying hospital conversations from months earlier.
Overnight, there was no one left to hand anything off to.
I still had a career in software sales. I still had three grieving children who needed stability, attention, structure, and reassurance. I still had a home to maintain and aging parents who needed help themselves. Every day became a nonstop cycle of trying to keep life moving forward while emotionally feeling like I had been hollowed out from the inside.
I would get the kids ready for school, try to focus on work calls while my mind wandered in ten different directions, pick the kids up, help with homework, do laundry, clean the house, buy groceries, make dinner, and somehow try to keep everyone emotionally afloat. Somewhere near the very bottom of the priority list was taking care of myself, and the truth is I never really did.
During Boni’s illness, I was fortunate to have an incredible boss who protected me financially while I focused on my family. He was French, lived in Paris, and had a completely different perspective on work and personal hardship than many American companies do. He told me not to worry about closing deals. Told me my responsibility was to take care of my wife and children. He continued paying me full commission throughout Boni’s illness, and I will never forget the compassion he showed our family during that period.
But shortly after Boni passed away, he was let go. And not long after that, I was let go as well. Unfortunately, with all that we had gone through and were still going through, pulling in deals took a back seat to real life. And it cost me my job.
The timing could not have been worse. The recession was beginning, and what I thought would be a short period of unemployment turned into eighteen months. We had already burned through almost all our savings during Boni’s cancer treatments. Even with insurance, we were spending staggering amounts in co-pays and medical expenses every single week. Suddenly I found myself unemployed, emotionally exhausted, raising three children alone, and watching our remaining financial stability disappear.
Hitting Rock Bottom
In what to this day remains as the lowest I think I have ever been, I remember sitting in a government office applying for food assistance and feeling completely humiliated. It had gotten that bad. I looked around the waiting room thinking, “How did my life end up here?” When I was finally called back to speak with someone, it didn’t go the way I thought it would. Despite being unemployed, I was told I made too much money to qualify for assistance because of the Social Security survivor benefits coming in from Boni’s death. The irony was overwhelming. I was receiving $1,800 dollars a month in benefits while trying to cover a mortgage that was over $2,000, feed three children, and survive without steady employment and all savings totally depleted.
That period fundamentally changed me. I can still remember walking out of that office and sitting in my car as the tears burned running down my face. This was not the life we had worked so hard to build. How was I going to survive, what had I done to deserve this, how was I expected to raise three young children when there was seemingly no help to be found. As I mentioned earlier, some memories are incredibly vivid while others are blurry and whatever happened after that humiliating appointment is a blur.
I applied for hundreds of jobs, but jobs were scarce and there were literally thousands of applicants for every position. I finally started taking whatever work I could find. I did computer jobs for people because technology came naturally to me. I also became a karaoke DJ and worked in bars four or five nights a week until two in the morning. I would pack up equipment, get home around three, sleep for a couple of hours, and then get back up at six to get the kids ready for school and then spend the day searching for a job.
I was physically exhausted, emotionally numb, and mentally running on fumes almost constantly.
At the same time, I was learning something difficult about grief and about people. Immediately after someone dies, support pours in. Friends call. Food arrives. People check in constantly. And to be fair, we had some truly incredible people around us. Teachers helped with the kids. PTA parents stepped in. Friends took the children for weekends to give me breathing room. There were people whose kindness I will never forget for the rest of my life.
But eventually the world resumes.
Summer arrives. Families go on vacation. Life gets busy again. The phone rings less often. The check-ins become fewer and farther between. Not because people are cruel, but because life naturally pulls people back toward their own responsibilities.
The problem is that grief doesn’t operate on the same schedule.
Grief Manifested
A month or two after someone dies, the grieving family is often just beginning to fully understand the permanence of what has happened. That was certainly true for me. I remember telling Boni before she passed that I thought the outpouring of support would probably last a couple of months before life slowly moved on for everyone else. Unfortunately, that prediction turned out to be accurate almost down to the timeline.
What I needed most during that period wasn’t advice or solutions. I simply needed presence. I needed people willing to sit in the discomfort with me for a little while and acknowledge that life had become unbelievably difficult. Instead, like many men probably do, I buried myself in responsibility and survival. I convinced myself that if I kept functioning, then I must be handling things adequately.
Looking back now, I understand surviving and healing are not the same thing.
I never saw a therapist. Never talked to a counselor. Never properly processed any of what happened. Part of that was because I genuinely didn’t know where to turn. Part of it was because I felt like I didn’t have time. But another part of it was something I think a lot of people (especially men) struggle with the feeling that when everyone depends on you, you begin to believe you no longer have permission to fall apart yourself.
So, I just kept moving… just like the hamster on a wheel. Moving but getting nowhere.
And eventually survival mode stopped feeling temporary and simply became part of my personality.
Lasting Impact
Even now, I still catch myself operating that way frequently. I am always preparing for the next problem, always feeling responsible for keeping everything together, always struggling to fully relax because part of me still expects life to suddenly fall apart again. This is one of the lasting effects of spending years in survival mode – you stop expecting things to be okay.
It also changes how you define strength.
When I was younger, I thought strength meant holding everything together no matter what. I thought it meant continuing to function, continuing to provide, continuing to push forward regardless of how much weight you were carrying internally.
What I understand now is that real strength also includes allowing yourself to need help.
I wish I had learned that earlier.
Still, somehow, we made it through.
Not perfectly. Not gracefully. I made plenty of mistakes raising those kids. There were moments when I honestly wasn’t sure any of us were going to be okay. But today, twenty-one years later, I look at the adults they have become and feel an incredible amount of pride. My sons are software engineers. My daughter has built a very successful career in event planning. They are kind, hardworking, resilient people, and I know Boni would be unbelievably proud of them.
More than anything, I wish my children had gotten more time with the version of Boni that existed before cancer entered our lives — the energetic mother, volunteer, friend, and person who held our family together so effortlessly for so many years.
As for me, I’m still learning from that journey all these years later.
For a long time, I didn’t talk much about any of this. Partly because life moved on and responsibilities took over. Partly because I convinced myself that surviving it meant I had somehow “handled” it. And partly because, like a lot of people in our industry, I spent years learning how to function through stress instead of learning how to process it.
The reality is that many people around us are carrying far more than we realize. The coworker who seems distracted. The employee whose performance suddenly slips. The friend who stops returning calls. The person still showing up every day while quietly falling apart underneath it all. I understand those people differently now because at one point, I was one of them.
Me and my 3 children in 2015, 10 years after Boni passed.
Me and my 3 children in 2025, 20 years after Boni passed.
One of the things I’ve learned through MSP Well is that my story isn’t nearly as unique as I once thought it was. There are different circumstances, different losses, different struggles, but far more people are carrying invisible weight than most of us realize. That’s a large part of why MSP Well matters so much to me.
I am sharing my story because I know firsthand how isolating it can feel when grief, caregiving, financial pressure, and sheer survival all collide at the same time. I also know how difficult it can be to ask for help when your entire identity has become tied to being the person who holds everything together.
If there’s one thing I hope you take from my story, it’s this:
Struggling does not mean you are weak, broken, or failing.
Sometimes it simply means you have been carrying unbearable weight for far too long without enough support.
What I wish I had done differently is simple: I should have asked for help sooner. Not waiting until things got desperate. I told myself I didn’t have time, that others needed me more, and – perhaps most importantly – that functioning was the same as coping. It wasn’t, and it isn’t.
Years passed before I understood the difference, and I can never get those years back.
If you are reading this and are in that place right now – overwhelmed, exhausted, grieving, anxious, or simply trying to survive another day while pretending you’re fine – please don’t do what I did. Don’t wait until survival mode stops feeling temporary. Don’t let it become your personality.
Reach out. To a counselor, a trusted colleague, a friend, or to us here at MSP Well. The door is open. You don’t have to figure out what to say, just walk through it.
You do not have to carry all of it alone. And you shouldn’t have to.
Because you are not alone.
Boni Meador
13-11-64 ~ 16-04-05