"My Heart Is Happy": Valerie's One Day to Remember

“I just wanted the opportunity to forget about my illness and focus on my kids.”

When Valerie applied for a One Day to Remember, her wish was simple. She wanted a day with her children where cancer didn't have to be the focus.

Valerie was just 36 years old when she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2024. What followed was an exhausting journey through chemotherapy, a mastectomy, and radiation. Then came the news she had been waiting and hoping for: she was cancer-free.

Valerie was ready to move forward. To put treatment behind her. To focus on her children and return to the everyday moments of being a mom. But earlier this year, everything changed.

Valerie learned that her cancer had returned and spread to her lungs. This time, the diagnosis was metastatic breast cancer. Suddenly, cancer was once again part of her family's story.

And when Valerie was allowed to tell us what her perfect One Day to Remember would look like, she knew exactly where she wanted to spend it: at a Los Angeles Dodgers game with her family.

More Than a Baseball Game

At One Day to Remember, every experience begins by listening. We ask families what would bring them joy, what their children love, and what kind of day would allow them to enjoy being together simply.

For Valerie, that was baseball.

So our team began planning a day at the ballpark. Along the way, we reached out to the Kyle Tucker Foundation to see if they might help us make Valerie's experience even more memorable.

Founded by MLB outfielder Kyle Tucker and his family, the Kyle Tucker Foundation works to raise awareness and provide support for end-of-life and palliative care programs while also giving back to meaningful causes in the community.

Their response helped turn Valerie's wish for a baseball game into an experience her family will never forget.

Valerie and her children were invited to attend batting practice before the game, allowing them to experience the ballpark in an entirely different way.

And then they met Kyle.

“Kyle was so sweet and so kind,” Valerie later shared.

He spent time talking with the family, taking photographs, and making Valerie's children feel special. He even signed a baseball for each of them, giving every child something tangible to take home from the experience.

For the family, watching batting practice became one of their favorite parts of the entire day. But what Valerie carried home with her was something even bigger.

"My Heart Is Happy"

Afterward, Valerie told us she couldn't stop thinking about what an amazing day they had experienced together.

Her words were simple:

“My heart is happy and forever thankful.”

And perhaps there is no better way to explain what a One Day to Remember can mean.

We can't make cancer disappear.

We can't take away the appointments, treatments, uncertainty, or fear that can come with an advanced-stage diagnosis.

But sometimes, we can help make it a little quieter.

For a few hours, Valerie didn't have to be a cancer patient.

She could be a mom at a baseball game.

She could watch her children meet a Major League Baseball player. She could see their excitement as they held their newly signed baseballs. She could watch batting practice with them, take photographs, laugh, cheer, and experience something they would talk about long after they left the stadium.

She could do exactly what she hoped for when she first applied:

Forget about her illness and focus on her kids.

That's what this mission is about.

Not forgetting cancer forever.

Just creating space where cancer isn't the most important thing in the room.

Where families can laugh together.

Where children can be children.

Where parents can be present for moments they'll never want to forget.

And where, at the end of an extraordinary day, a mom can go home and say:

My heart is happy.

We are incredibly grateful to Kyle Tucker and the Kyle Tucker Foundation for their kindness and generosity toward Valerie and her family, and for helping us transform a day at the ballpark into a memory they will carry with them forever.

Because sometimes one day really can mean everything.