Sign in
Worth Celebrating: The Brightest Lights of Hope
Hardship and loss change us.
We can go into darkness, never coming out, or we can turn pain into purpose. These five women have made it their life’s work to help others by funneling their darkest times into the brightest lights of hope. They are worth celebrating, and we hope everyone who reads this understands that if you’re still breathing, you can do the hard things, one day at a time.
Tammy Porostovsky
“Max had dark hair, chubby cheeks, and brown almond-shaped eyes that looked like his daddy’s.”
Max, diagnosed with Trisomy 18 in utero, lived for two hours after he was born. But knowing that she would lose him throughout her pregnancy changed Tammy’s life. Max gave his mother a gift: the power to help others heal.
Tammy suffered three miscarriages before Max was born, and two miscarriages after him. But when Tammy was 40, she had MJ. Today, that beautiful 10-year-old girl is the embodiment of joy and happiness. MJ loves basketball. Art. And her mommy and daddy.
Grief is a complicated beast. We experience supreme happiness in our lives, but it doesn’t negate the pain of previous trauma. Tammy survived for seven years before she started helping other people overcome adversity, which was her golden ticket to healing her heart. Today, Tammy works at Metroplex Counseling in Fort Worth doing IASIS neurofeedback, a noninvasive medical treatment that helps the brain recover and rewire from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and various traumas.
A tattoo on her forearm, the word “Max” wrapped in a heart, shows the power of a mother’s love, the potential to heal, and how transformational tragedy can be if we let something good rise from the ashes of grief.
Janice McCall
If you listen to TCU’s radio station, KTCU, you’re hearing Janice McCall’s music mastery.
The station’s co-director has been running the show at KTCU for 17 years. These days, she carries a cane like a fairy carries its wand, sprinkling happiness and hope wherever she goes, but for Janice, her road to wellness was full of bumps, many bruises, and a surgery that saved her life.
“I couldn’t stop throwing up,” Janice said. She had test after test, going to doctor after doctor for two-and-a-half years, but no one could figure out what was wrong. Finally, a hepatologist figured it out: Janice had non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and was in Stage 4 liver failure.
She immediately went to the top of the transplant list. Six weeks later, she got a call while talking to friends in the TCU parking lot.
“We’ve got your liver.”
“After the transplant, it was like the air smelled better. The grass looked greener. And I looked at life differently,” said Janice. “It’s made me stop and not want to worry as much.”
Unfortunately, nothing is perfect. After the transplant, there were complications and more surgeries. But now whenever Janice encounters an obstacle, she thinks, “This is a piece of cake. I had an organ transplant.”
That perspective makes Janice glow from the inside out. She’s figured out the secret to surviving life’s toughest seasons.
“Don’t try to go through hard times alone. We all need our people.”
Layla Caraway
photo credit: Bob Lukeman
When the Trinity River flooded in 2007, the rising waters came perilously close to washing away Layla Caraway’s home in Haltom City. Over seven days, high waters eroded 50 feet of her property; she feared her home would fall into the creek.
Layla was lucky. She got out, but a young girl living nearby drowned.
The experience transformed her into a community activist overnight. “[The flood] completely changed my entire world,” Layla said. “I got involved in my community and in politics because I saw the magnitude of loss and how poorly people were being treated.”
Eighteen years later, she’s a community organizer, standing up for her beliefs. “I wanted to give back,” she said. “My grandparents grew up here. I grew up here. I wanted to be proud of my community.”
There’s a quote hanging on her front door that reads, “No storm lasts forever.”
Layla survives life’s storms by helping others rise from hardship or loss. That servant leadership was something she learned from watching her mom do all she could to help anyone in need.
“Happiness comes and goes,” Layla said, “but some people remember what you did to help them for the rest of their lives.”
Stacy Agee Martin
“He [was] the cutest guy I’d ever seen… It was safe to flirt because I knew I didn’t have a chance. Turns out, it was his 40th birthday. I said, ‘Let me buy you a shot for your birthday.’ We had a ball that night, then it was over.”
Ten days later, Stacy returned to the bar, and there he was.
“I promise I’m not a stalker, but I’ve been coming here the last 10 nights trying to find you,” the cutest guy, named Chris, said.
Stacy and Chris have been married for six years. It’s Stacy’s second marriage, but maybe her first true love.
“People ask me, how do you know they’re the one?” she said. “If you have to ask yourself the question, maybe they’re not.”
Stacy’s good at relationships. As the former executive director of Fortress Youth Development, she built a culture of trust with the families they served. Fortress is closing its doors after two decades of working to end generational poverty, but they forever changed the lives of 1,700 kids in the Historic Southside.
“We’ve done deep work with families,” said Stacy. “That’s our difference, that deep and wide work.” But she also knows “you’ve got to take care of you.”
That’s true for life, work, and love.
Knowing when to say “yes” and “no” is key to growth that can lead to life’s next adventure. And that’s what Stacy is looking forward to next. She’s not leaving Fort Worth or the nonprofit sector. She’s working to better the city — one relationship at a time.
“Why did the hottest man in the world fall in love with me?” she wonders out loud.
Because you’re a badass, Stacy.
Christi Bragg
photo credit: CDP Photography
“A lot of women don’t report sexual violence, assault, or harassment,” said Christi Bragg.
It took decades for the mother of five to understand how sexual trauma impacted her. When she did, she turned her pain into purpose, going back to school to become a trauma therapist.
“When you start addressing trauma, you’re able to shift that to a healthy resilience. It never makes it okay, but you’re taking something that’s been functioning maladaptively in your body and recognizing the healthy resilience that came out of it.”
The good news: Women can recover from sexual violence at any age.
The bad news: In Texas, one in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime.
“I wouldn’t be in this work if healing weren’t possible,” said Christi. “But healing isn’t linear.”
Christi listens with her entire body and embraces her vulnerability. In 2018, one of her daughters disclosed sexual abuse by a church leader. The process Christi and her husband, Matt, went through to help their daughter heal led Christi to become a voice for survivors like herself, a licensed master social worker, and a certified EMDR therapist.
Today, she works with Louder Than Silence, which gives survivors of sexual assault free resources to heal, be heard, and find community.
Generations of women were taught to “grin and giggle” when a man says something sexually inappropriate. It’s a pernicious culture that will take lifetimes to change, but brave women like Christi empower survivors to stand up, speak out, and know they are not alone.
