Maria&Rob&Lilly&Amelia

Maria and Rob met in Long Island, New York in 2004 while attending the same high school and, like any good love story, they started out as friends which eventually flourished into admiration, then love. They relocated from Long Island to Mount Holly in 2016 and according to Maria, “ We’re never moving back to NY. NJ and this town have been very good to us.”

During their 10+ years together, Maria & Rob have brought two GORGEOUS little girls into the world- Lillian, 4 and Amelia, 3-both of whom attend the same Pre-K as my own daughter so I'm lucky enough to see Maria most days in the pickup line at school. There has not been one time that I've seen Maria and not felt her aura of positivity. She absolutely radiates and if you've ever been in her presence, you know exactly what I mean.

Up until August 2021, Maria worked as an RN in the Virtua Memorial OR here in Mount Holly.

A few weeks ago, I received a text message from a very good friend of mine, Ronela, who works alongside Maria:

"So I have a coworker. This is a long story…

She had a seizure at work without any history. She went straight to our ER and MRI showed two masses in her brain and one in her kidney. So she got transferred to Lourdes Camden where our neurosurgery is. She had a craniotomy the same week and had biopsies done of the masses on her brain. She also has a history of sarcoma and turns out both masses were similar to her sarcoma from before. She’s seeing a sarcoma specialist at Penn and he doesn’t think she needs to have a partial nephrectomy to take the mass out of her kidney but she does have nodules in her lungs that are concerning. She’s a few years younger than us and has 2 little girls and this whole thing is just so scary. Also thankful that her seizure happened at work and not at home with the girls. So I wanted to do something for her and schedule a family session with you and her family. I haven’t told her yet. I wanted to check with you first. "

For more reasons than one, Maria's story hit very close to my heart and without hesitation, I reached out to Maria.

She filled me in a little more on some details of her history:

"Chemo doesn't work for these sarcomas which is Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma (ASPS) for short. I had radiation and surgery in 2008 for my left thigh, 2011 for [my] left lung, [and] right frontal and left temporal craniotomy and stereotactic brain radiation."

For those not up on their medical jargon...Maria has been through a lot.

Maria also informed me during our first chat that she would be undergoing lung surgery on October 19th, 2021 and she was hoping that we would be able to coordinate schedules sometime before then. Yes, we did.

Knowing how important and special this session was to Maria & her family, I felt the butterflies ebb and flow in my belly the days preceding it. However, as soon as Maria & Rob got out of their cars and flashed those big bright and welcoming smiles, I immediately felt at ease.

The love between these four was so incredibly beautiful to witness. They weather the storms together with such grace and positivity & while I sat and watched them canoodle unprompted, I couldn't help but pause for a minute, put my camera down, and just watch.

Once I gathered myself and snapped out of my trance, our session continued. And, it was beautiful. And, it was full of love and laughter and all the snuggles. I remember at one point thinking to myself...

Everyone needs a little bit of this love in their lives.

I feel so incredibly honored to have been able to be a small part of Maria's journey and it means the absolute world to me that I was chosen to deliver these memories to her and share her story. I want to thank Maria for being so open and allowing me to share her story and helping to spread awareness. Maria's journey is not over just yet as she will undergo another surgery this week, however, she is a beam of light and I have a strong feeling that nothing will be dulling her shine anytime soon.

If you'd like to follow Maria's journey, she posts updates on her instagram @MariaBraunskill.

A GoFundMe account has also been created for Maria and her family for those who are so gracious enough to donate to her recovery.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-maria-on-her-road-to-recovery?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer