June 19, 2025 • 31 mins
Bob Furness shares the transformative journey of his daughter Keesha, who battled stage four breast cancer from age 30 until her death at 34, and how her story inspired his book "On The Blue" and the Warrior Princess Foundation.
• Keesha was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer at just 30 years old after being misdiagnosed with asthma
• As a child with ADD, Keesha struggled with multi-tasking, but this became her "superpower" during cancer treatment as she hyper-focused on survival
• Bob created meaningful experiences by placing events on Keesha's calendar every few weeks, giving her goals to anticipate
• The Warrior Princess Foundation encourages fathers to talk to daughters about breast health and self-examinations
• Early detection is crucial - breast cancer found at stage zero or one has a 97-98% survival rate
• The book title "On To Blue" carries three meanings: a story reference, Keesha's favorite beach, and the blue of heaven
For more information or to support the foundation, visit warriorprincess.org or ontobluebook.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
If you've ever struggled with fear, doubt or
worry and wondering what yourtrue purpose was all about, then
this podcast is for you.
In this show, your host, sylviaWorsham, will interview elite
experts and ordinary people thathave created extraordinary
lives.
So here's your host, sylviaWorsham.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey, lightbringers, it's Sylvia Worsham.
Welcome to Released OutRevealed Purpose.
And today is Bob Furness, andhe is the author of On the Blue,
and he's got an amazing, veryheartwarming story to share
about his daughter whounfortunately passed away from
stage four breast cancer.
But her legacy lives on throughBob and his work and through
his book.
So, without further ado, bob,thank you so much for joining us
(00:51):
this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having me, Sylvia.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's a pleasure having you and I know you have
an amazing story to share.
There's a lot of grief thereand we want to dive deep into
this because there's people thathave lost children and they've
lost children in ways that canbe devastating and can keep them
stuck.
But it sounds like you havedone something very powerful,
(01:15):
written a book called on theblue and, without further ado,
can you share with us your storyof transformation.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, when we talk about a story of transformation,
well, she definitelytransformed my life, and I wear
a bracelet every day called itsays on it Live Like Keisha.
The book is a story of hertransformation.
She was a little girl thatstruggled with ADD when she was
(01:47):
growing up and when she gotcancer.
She became one of the strongestwomen that I've ever known in
my life and she was diagnosedwith stage four breast cancer at
just 30 years old and she liveduntil she was 34.
So she made it four yearsbefore cancer took her life, but
(02:10):
during that time she was theepitome of a warrior.
I can remember just story afterstory, and probably the toughest
part of writing the book wasleaving things out that came to
mind or writing about somethingand then deciding that it really
didn't fit into the narrative.
(02:30):
But writing the book wastransformative in that it was
therapeutic to write about her.
I started out writing a bookabout what I learned from my
kids in life and it sort ofmorphed into what I learned from
(02:52):
her.
There are a couple of reallycool stories in the book about
my son and what he's taught me,and he continues to teach me.
He's now a dad with three youngkids that are by far the cutest
and the best three kids in theworld, as you can imagine from
this grandfather.
But the book is primarily abouther life and what she went
(03:17):
through.
And then I face it back to meas a father and to my wife,
susan, as a mother, and what welearned from her as we were
going through that journey.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Wonderful, I mean, and do share with us her story
of transformation, that warriorof light because she was and it
sounds like she was a warrior oflight.
Tell us more about her journey,how she discovered the breast
cancer, what things you did asparents to kind of guide her
through that.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So that's sort of a tough question, because what we
know is there was an opportunitythat she missed and it was only
found in stage four.
It was found because she washaving trouble breathing and I
was actually out of town and mywife took her to the emergency
room and thinking that there wassomething wrong with her lungs.
(04:18):
And and there was.
There was metastasized breastcancer in her lungs and she'd
been being treated for asthma.
So she, she went to the doctor,but the doctor wasn't looking
at breast cancer because she wasonly 30 years old and and and
that's the reason why we havethe non-profit, which I'll talk
about in a little bit but, um,she, she just we discovered the
(04:42):
breast, the breast cancer.
One of the things that we didearly on was so she came back, I
came back, I flew back in thatnight.
It was at night when they foundthat I flew back from
California overnight, and veryearly in that she began to talk
about the responsibility formissing what she missed, and I
(05:07):
very quickly said look, itdoesn't matter how we got here.
What matters is what we'regoing to do with where we are
and what we're going to do goingforward.
And while we talked about howwe got there later in the four
years and several times, manytimes, over the last year of her
(05:28):
life, because she wanted us totell the story so that other
women didn't go through what shewent through and other parents
didn't go through what we wentthrough.
But you know, it's importantthat women pay attention to
breast health.
And so while she was sick, shelived her life out loud on
(05:52):
social media.
There's still a Facebook pagethat exists for her.
That was all the things thatshe lived out loud on.
She was in a couple ofmetastatic programs, mentoring
programs, where she would talkwith women who were first
diagnosed about her experienceand so her warrior-like attitude
(06:16):
.
She went from being that littlegirl have you ever had your
child fall down and scratchtheir knee?
And they just scream, but theydon't make any noise.
And you would think that whenyou get over to them that their
kneecap is going to be stuckoutside their knee and they were
going to have to go to theemergency room and she would
(06:39):
fall down and do that and shewould scream without making
noise, and I would go over toher and I would go.
I don't, I don't see anything.
I'm sorry, sweetheart, You'reokay, you just, it just hurts,
You're going to be okay.
And then when she became, whenshe was diagnosed, she became
this person that was juststronger than reality.
(07:04):
I sometimes had to remind herthat it's okay to have a bad day
, it's okay to have days whereyou're not okay, and often the
reason she was doing that wasshe didn't want us to feel bad
as parents.
Or she wouldn't tell her friendexactly how bad she was because
she didn't want them to feelbad.
(07:26):
But when she found out about itit was already in multiple
places in her body.
So we knew that stage four wedon't typically talk about
terminal cancer in Americaanymore, but stage four has a
(07:47):
very low uh, of course we wentto Dr Google and found out all
the, all the bad things about itand how bad it was.
And, um, she knew how sick shewas.
But we didn't focus on that.
We focused on what can we doand we actually I actually, as a
(08:08):
father, I couldn't do anythingto fix it.
You know, as a dad, you canchange a lot of things.
You can.
She gets in a bad marriage, shecan come home and stay with us.
If she gets in a badrelationship, a dating
relationship I'll go and punchthe guy in the nose.
Dating relationship I'll go andpunch the guy in the nose, Like
like there was a lot of stuffthat you can do as a dad, but I
(08:29):
couldn't fix breast cancer.
I just I just couldn't fix itand, um, it was.
But what I could do was putthings in front of her.
So we had a bucket list andthere was something on her
calendar about every three tofour weeks and in the book I
talk about that.
(08:50):
I think that when somebodyreaches that time in their life
when they're very, very sick andyou know that there's time is
coming to put things in front ofthem, we would walk out of
Disney World and she would go inthree weeks I get to see Luke
Bryan.
Or we would walk out of a LukeBryan concert and she would go
(09:10):
in three weeks we're going toCalifornia, and what I could do
was put that in front of her.
But her warrior-ness was herability to deal with it.
And I'll let you ask anotherquestion, because I'm talking
(09:32):
really long to short questions.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No, it's.
You know, I allow, like whenpeople want to answer a certain
way.
I allow it because our heartsare led to answer.
Like I stated before we startedthe interview, we allow the
free flow because sometimeswe're led, sometimes our, our
(09:54):
people that have gone beyondthis have a special message they
want to share and they gothrough us and we're the
messengers.
Or sometimes, you know, in mycase I, sometimes the Holy
Spirit, has something to say andI just allow and I say what I
need to say, and so there's norhyme or reason.
(10:17):
I'm loving the fact that youcould put one goal in front of
her and that's important to tosay, especially for people whose
time is coming up.
It's also the experiences.
I believe wholeheartedly,because I lived it with my
father's journey, that everystage has its beautiful moments,
(10:41):
embedded in with the painfulrealization that their time is
coming to an end.
But it's those moments of joythat will always live with us,
no matter how long they've beengone.
You can always go back intoyour heart and into your mind
and remember the joy on theirfaces in that concert.
(11:04):
Or the last Christmas.
In my case, I have picturesthat I documented of my father's
last Christmas and just thesimple moments that escape us
sometimes because we're so busydoing and being that we're not
enjoying.
Even in the pain, even in thegrief, there's love and there's
(11:27):
joy.
In the grief there's love andthere's joy, and I love that you
guys gave her those moments,those bucket list items that are
so important, because sometimeswe get so caught up in the
disease itself that we stop tolike, we stop enjoying life.
We just, some people, just endup ending right then and there,
(11:50):
because their spirit dies withthem immediately.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, no, she was Her spirit.
She was a spirit.
I think I mentioned in my noteto you when we were talking
about doing this podcast thatshe grew up with ADD and not
ADHD.
She wasn't hyper, but veryyoung.
We struggled with things likeyou would go into her room and
(12:17):
say, okay, it's time to go toschool, put on your socks and
shoes, put your books in yourbag and meet me in the car in
five minutes, and whenever I didthat, that meant I gave her too
many things to do because shecould only do one at a time, and
so, as a dad, I had to learnthat she was technically
diagnosed when she was in theseventh grade, based on a book
(12:38):
that I read called Driven toDistraction, and what was weird
is that I saw myself in the bookand I actually believe that
some of my success in life is asa result of my ADD.
It's not unusual for me to have50 tabs open on my browser.
Now I read the articles thatsay that you can't multitask and
(12:59):
you're not doing things wellwhen you're multitasking, but I
believe that that has been someof my strength, and what was
interesting to me about her wasthat and I talk about this story
in the book is that her ADDbecame her superpower when she
got sick, because the one thingthat she focused on was living
(13:24):
another day, another week,another month and it was her, it
was her primary thing, thatthat she focused on.
And and I look back of all thetimes in her life, that ADD was
a problem.
When she got into college shesaid, look, the medicine makes
me feel weird, I'm not going totake it anymore.
And you know we, we would seethe the results of that.
(13:49):
But we, we, you know we wouldsee the results of that.
But we, you know, we allowed orwe agreed that it was her
decision as an adult whether sheshould take it or not, but we
definitely saw the difference.
But it became her superpower toonly focus on one thing and that
was living.
Only focus on one thing andthat was living.
(14:11):
I can remember one time she wastalking to the oncologist who
became sort of like agrandfather in her life.
They saw each other so oftenover those four years and Dr
Schwartzberg became almost likethis grandfather relationship
and they were talking about whatmedicine she was on and she
(14:34):
always ended the conversationwith him by saying so if this
doesn't work, what's the nextoption?
And so, even in the times whenshe was talking to an oncologist
about what was about to happenwas talking to an oncologist
(14:55):
about what was about to happen,excuse me.
She was always focused on howdo I?
How do I?
What's next?
What if this doesn't work?
Or if this only works for ashort amount of time, what's
next?
So she was just just so full oflife and so full of wanting to
live just so full of life and sofull of wanting to live.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I love you know.
It does remind me of thehyper-focus ability of ADD
children, because I myself haveADD and my daughter and my son.
My son has the ADHD version,which is more common in boys,
but the ADD is definitely thecommon one in girls and my girl
just got diagnosed in Novemberof this past year and the
(15:37):
hyper-focus is really asuperpower, Like when you zero
in on one thing.
We have the amazing capacity toreally see a project through
because nothing stops us and weare this tenacious individual
and some people think likethat's just so opposite of what
you see an ADD child do, but wecan.
(16:00):
We can have this amazingcapacity and it sounds wonderful
that she did put that in.
What is even more wonderful isthat, as a father, you focused
(16:21):
on what you could do because asprovider, and protector it is
within your dna to want to fixthings and there's men and I've
seen, I've read so many books onit and it it took me a while to
learn that particular um ideaof men.
It must be the most hard thingto do so.
As a father, can you give sometips to fathers that may be
(16:41):
journeying in this stage rightnow, with their girls having a
diagnosis that they cannot fixwhat?
What would you, what tips wouldyou guide them on?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So the first thing is time.
I took some time off.
My, my CEO and my company atthe time called me and said, bob
, shut your laptop and take asmuch time as you need with your
family.
So I was very blessed and verylucky for that to happen, to
work in a company that was likethat, but I did go back to work
(17:18):
Eventually.
She was sick for four years,and so the number one thing I
would say is time.
You don't have as much time asyou think you do, and so find
ways to spend time with whoeverin your life is at this stage or
in a stage where they're veryill.
Find time.
The second thing is to recordand capture who she was and who
(17:44):
she is.
I talked about having a companycome in and, like a reporter,
come in and do a sort of a Idon't know a Dateline story
about her or a story about herlife, and we never did it and I
wish I had, although now I'vewritten the book, so I guess it
(18:05):
still happened.
But number two is that.
Number three is to just lovethem where they are.
I talk in the book about theplatinum rule of loving people
the way they want to be loved,and what a diagnosis like that
will do is.
It will put everything in yourlife in question.
(18:28):
So she was 30 years old.
She had 30 years of life beforeand everything that I did every
time I yelled at her andthought about it, every time I
was less than what I should havebeen as a dad or what I should
have done better, came intoquestion, because I knew that
(18:49):
there was a limited amount oftime that she was going to be on
earth and so, instead of goingback and hanging out in that
spot, just take those that timethat you have and make up for it
, and you can overcome whateveryou've done.
That you know.
(19:09):
I'm confident that my daughterknew I loved her unconditionally
, but there were times when shehad ADD and whenever she was who
she was, you know I wanted herto be a cool kid and that just
wasn't her.
She wasn't the cool kid.
So I'll say to fathers who havea daughter or son now that's a
(19:31):
little different, a littleunusual, not the cool kids, but
they have their own self-worth.
It's to love them the way theyare, love them who they are,
love them for what they are andbecause when you, when you, if
you ever get into this situation, all of the things that you
(19:56):
wanted fade away to the onething that's left, which is love
for her.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yes, absolutely, and it's really resonating with me
because I have two of those kids, you know, and we,
unfortunately society kind ofpushes an idea that they've got
to be this way or they're notsuccessful or they're not worthy
and it's very subliminal andit's everywhere.
(20:25):
And we fall trapped to it asparents If we come from like, a
high achieving background andyou're constantly checking off
boxes.
I know I did and I fell trappedto that and I caught myself
wanting her to have a betterlife than I did because I didn't
want her to fall into the sametraps I did.
But that's like every parent'swish.
(20:48):
Yeah, I mean, we all want that.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I couldn't understand why she couldn't work from a
checklist.
Like I do everything, I have ato-do list for my to-do list and
I couldn't understand why shecouldn't work from a to-do list.
But the reality is is that'sjust not the way her brain was
wired.
Her brain was wired to dothings as they come up, as she
(21:11):
thinks about them, and so, as adad who's either going through
it or even if you're not goingthrough it and you're listening
to this as a dad, do that andthen, secondarily, as a dad, is
a move towards the nonprofitthere was.
There was a, so what startedthe nonprofit was that I wrote
(21:37):
an article to the CommercialAppeal, which is the local
newspaper here in Memphis,Tennessee, and it was entitled
the Question that Every DadShould Ask His Daughter, and so
I was asking my daughter are youbeing careful when you get in
the daughter?
Are you being careful when youget in the car?
Are you being careful when youwalk in the parking lot?
Do you have gas in the car?
But I never asked her are yougoing to the gynecologist and
(22:00):
are you doing breast self-exams?
I didn't ask her a lot abouther health in general and what I
realized although I don't takeand I don't feel responsible for
her death, but I do realizethat if I had done those things,
then it's possible that shewould have found it at stage one
or stage two and she mightstill be here.
(22:22):
You should ask your daughter isis she going to the
gynecologist or talking to herhealthcare provider about her
breast health, and is she doingself-checks?
Now, a lot of times when I talkto a group of dads about that,
(22:43):
I'll have one dad come up to meafterwards and go dude, there's
no way I'm going to talk to mydaughter about her breast health
.
That's not happening.
That's her mom's job.
And so I hand him one of ourcards that's available on our
website.
That has a shower card thathangs in the shower and it has
the information on the back ofhow to do a breast exam and the
(23:05):
icons on the front, and I handit to him and I say so here's
what you're going to do.
You're going to just tell herthat you were listening to this
guy speak about his daughter andyou're going to tell her that
it's really important that shedo these things and you're going
to hand this to her, and thenshe's going to come back to you
and go, dad, I'm doing it or I'mnot doing it, or you're going
(23:27):
to wait a couple of weeks andyou're going to say, hey, that
thing I gave you, have you beento the doctor yet?
It's that simple, and I've toldthat story so many times.
(23:48):
And how I knew that storymattered was I was in a bar in
Boston, I was working in Bostonand I got through early and
realized that Cheers Bar was acouple of blocks away.
So I walked over to the CheersBar and sat at the bar and it
was very much like everybodyknows your name kind of
environment, because a husbandand wife sat down beside me and
we struck up a conversationwhich is not typically my major,
(24:10):
typically my major.
And then this was about fourmonths, five months after Keisha
died, and the wife asked me aquestion.
She said so, how many kids doyou have?
(24:33):
And there was this blur ofinformation running around in my
brain Do I tell her one my sonand let the other one go?
Or do I tell her the Keisha?
And if I tell her two, what amI going to say about our
daughter?
So I decided that I was goingto say two, because that's how
many kids I had and I told her.
(24:54):
And then I told her the storythat I'm telling now about
Keisha, and she looked at herhusband.
Her husband looked at her andsaid we have two daughters in
their mid 20s and I don't know,do either of them go to the
gynecologist and are either ofthem doing breast exams?
And the wife said I don't know,but by the end of the day,
(25:16):
before I go to sleep, I bet Iknow that answer and you will
too.
And as I got in the Uber or thetaxi and was on the way to the
airport, it occurred to methat's it, that's the nonprofit.
Just take her story and talk toyoung women.
Take her story and other youngwomen's stories.
There's multiple stories on ourwebsite about women who have
(25:38):
found something in their 30s andthen found something and went
to the doctor.
The doctors almost always sayoh, you're too young for breast
cancer.
I'm sure it's nothing.
And sometimes it is nothing,and that's what we want it to be
.
We want you to check and thenfind nothing.
But sometimes it is something,and what's important is to find
(26:00):
it in its early stages, Becauseif you find it in stage zero or
stage one, it actually has abouta 97, 98% survival rate, and so
it's very important to find itearly.
She didn't find it until shewas in her fourth stage, which
was in multiple placesthroughout her body.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
You know, and that leads me to that question,
because what you've discussed isthe purpose that you now live
out through your charity workand this charity and through the
book.
Is this a permanent purpose?
And we now know how youdiscovered it.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So the question is yeah, I think it's a permanent
purpose.
I think that my board, mynonprofit board, asked me
recently for the second time sowhat happens when you die, Bob?
Are we going to be able to keepthis going?
And I said, well, we would haveto have somebody to take over
(27:00):
what my wife and I do.
So it is something that I itmay morph a little bit, and if
we put somebody in charge of thenonprofit besides my wife and I
, it will definitely morph alittle bit.
But our purpose is to ensurethat parents don't go through
what we've been through.
(27:21):
And the purpose of my daughtertelling me to please tell my
story, dad, was I don't wantanybody to go through what you
and mom have gone through and Idon't want anyone to go through
what I've gone through.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
That's a pretty strong purpose yes, that's
something that you get up everyday and you yeah you get it done
because she asks you to.
And she, our warrior of light,is still speaking from where
she's at yes, she is oh, inpeace.
Peace and no longer in pain.
And that gives solace to thedegree you know, but I love her.
(28:00):
I love the charity On the blue.
How can people reach you, Bob,if they want to get a copy of
the book or maybe help?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
with your charity.
So if they want to visit thecharity, they can go to
warriorprincessorg justwarriorprincessorg.
It's really simple.
If they want to find out moreabout the book, they can go to
ontobluecom ontobluebook sorry,ontobluebookcom, and just those
(28:34):
words bookcom and um, just thosewordscom.
And if they want to join us onuh Facebook or on Instagram,
where we post from time to time,they can look up uh warrior
princess or Keisha warriorprincess, and they'll find us on
there.
Um, go to ontobluebookcom.
(28:55):
It has contact information forme, direct on email on Facebook.
It has our Instagram and ourTwitter account, so you can find
me If you look up Bob Furness.
I'm in a lot of places on theinternet, so you can find me.
I appreciate that, Bob theinternet so you can find me.
(29:16):
I appreciate that, bob.
And for the oh and.
And the book is available onamazon.
Sorry, I didn't interrupt you.
The book is available on amazonif you, if you do a search on
on the blue on the blue, on toblue on to blue.
There's a really cool storyabout that.
Probably don't have time totell it, but I'll leave that for
someone to read.
But there's a really cool storyI didn't get that there's a
real internet is it reachable?
(29:37):
alexa, stop, sorry about thatokay there's a really cool story
about that and that's the nameof the book, but it has three
meanings.
It has the meaning of the story, it has the meaning of the
beach and the blue beach, whichwas her favorite place in the
world, and it has the blue ofheaven, which I'm confident is
(29:58):
where she is today.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Oh, I'm more than confident she's there.
I've felt lots of confirmationsthroughout the podcast
interviews, so this isdefinitely in line with what she
wanted and what God wants forthe message to be.
So thank you, bob, for joiningus, for being vulnerable and
sharing your beautiful story andthe story of your beautiful
(30:22):
daughter.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It was a pleasure having you and for the listeners
, of Released Out Reveal Purpose.
Remember Matthew 5.14, be thelight.
Have a wonderful week, staysafe.
Love you all.
Bye now.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So that's it for today's episode of Released Out
Reveal Purpose.
Head on over iTunes or whereveryou listen and subscribe to the
show.
One lucky listener every singleweek who posts a review on
itunes will win a chance ingrand prize drawing to win a 25
000 private vip day with sylviaworship herself.
(31:02):
Be sure to head on over toreleased out reveal purpose
podcastcom and pick up a freecopy of sylvia's gift and join
us on next episode.
If you've ever struggled with fear, doubt or
worry and wondering what yourtrue purpose was all about, then
this podcast is for you.
In this show, your host, sylviaWorsham, will interview elite
experts and ordinary people thathave created extraordinary
lives.
So here's your host, sylviaWorsham.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hey, lightbringers, it's Sylvia Worsham.
Welcome to Released OutRevealed Purpose.
And today is Bob Furness, andhe is the author of On the Blue,
and he's got an amazing, veryheartwarming story to share
about his daughter whounfortunately passed away from
stage four breast cancer.
But her legacy lives on throughBob and his work and through
his book.
So, without further ado, bob,thank you so much for joining us
(00:51):
this afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thank you for having me, Sylvia.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's a pleasure having you and I know you have
an amazing story to share.
There's a lot of grief thereand we want to dive deep into
this because there's people thathave lost children and they've
lost children in ways that canbe devastating and can keep them
stuck.
But it sounds like you havedone something very powerful,
(01:15):
written a book called on theblue and, without further ado,
can you share with us your storyof transformation.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, when we talk about a story of transformation,
well, she definitelytransformed my life, and I wear
a bracelet every day called itsays on it Live Like Keisha.
The book is a story of hertransformation.
She was a little girl thatstruggled with ADD when she was
(01:47):
growing up and when she gotcancer.
She became one of the strongestwomen that I've ever known in
my life and she was diagnosedwith stage four breast cancer at
just 30 years old and she liveduntil she was 34.
So she made it four yearsbefore cancer took her life, but
(02:10):
during that time she was theepitome of a warrior.
I can remember just story afterstory, and probably the toughest
part of writing the book wasleaving things out that came to
mind or writing about somethingand then deciding that it really
didn't fit into the narrative.
(02:30):
But writing the book wastransformative in that it was
therapeutic to write about her.
I started out writing a bookabout what I learned from my
kids in life and it sort ofmorphed into what I learned from
(02:52):
her.
There are a couple of reallycool stories in the book about
my son and what he's taught me,and he continues to teach me.
He's now a dad with three youngkids that are by far the cutest
and the best three kids in theworld, as you can imagine from
this grandfather.
But the book is primarily abouther life and what she went
(03:17):
through.
And then I face it back to meas a father and to my wife,
susan, as a mother, and what welearned from her as we were
going through that journey.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Wonderful, I mean, and do share with us her story
of transformation, that warriorof light because she was and it
sounds like she was a warrior oflight.
Tell us more about her journey,how she discovered the breast
cancer, what things you did asparents to kind of guide her
through that.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So that's sort of a tough question, because what we
know is there was an opportunitythat she missed and it was only
found in stage four.
It was found because she washaving trouble breathing and I
was actually out of town and mywife took her to the emergency
room and thinking that there wassomething wrong with her lungs.
(04:18):
And and there was.
There was metastasized breastcancer in her lungs and she'd
been being treated for asthma.
So she, she went to the doctor,but the doctor wasn't looking
at breast cancer because she wasonly 30 years old and and and
that's the reason why we havethe non-profit, which I'll talk
about in a little bit but, um,she, she just we discovered the
(04:42):
breast, the breast cancer.
One of the things that we didearly on was so she came back, I
came back, I flew back in thatnight.
It was at night when they foundthat I flew back from
California overnight, and veryearly in that she began to talk
about the responsibility formissing what she missed, and I
(05:07):
very quickly said look, itdoesn't matter how we got here.
What matters is what we'regoing to do with where we are
and what we're going to do goingforward.
And while we talked about howwe got there later in the four
years and several times, manytimes, over the last year of her
(05:28):
life, because she wanted us totell the story so that other
women didn't go through what shewent through and other parents
didn't go through what we wentthrough.
But you know, it's importantthat women pay attention to
breast health.
And so while she was sick, shelived her life out loud on
(05:52):
social media.
There's still a Facebook pagethat exists for her.
That was all the things thatshe lived out loud on.
She was in a couple ofmetastatic programs, mentoring
programs, where she would talkwith women who were first
diagnosed about her experienceand so her warrior-like attitude
(06:16):
.
She went from being that littlegirl have you ever had your
child fall down and scratchtheir knee?
And they just scream, but theydon't make any noise.
And you would think that whenyou get over to them that their
kneecap is going to be stuckoutside their knee and they were
going to have to go to theemergency room and she would
(06:39):
fall down and do that and shewould scream without making
noise, and I would go over toher and I would go.
I don't, I don't see anything.
I'm sorry, sweetheart, You'reokay, you just, it just hurts,
You're going to be okay.
And then when she became, whenshe was diagnosed, she became
this person that was juststronger than reality.
(07:04):
I sometimes had to remind herthat it's okay to have a bad day
, it's okay to have days whereyou're not okay, and often the
reason she was doing that wasshe didn't want us to feel bad
as parents.
Or she wouldn't tell her friendexactly how bad she was because
she didn't want them to feelbad.
(07:26):
But when she found out about itit was already in multiple
places in her body.
So we knew that stage four wedon't typically talk about
terminal cancer in Americaanymore, but stage four has a
(07:47):
very low uh, of course we wentto Dr Google and found out all
the, all the bad things about itand how bad it was.
And, um, she knew how sick shewas.
But we didn't focus on that.
We focused on what can we doand we actually I actually, as a
(08:08):
father, I couldn't do anythingto fix it.
You know, as a dad, you canchange a lot of things.
You can.
She gets in a bad marriage, shecan come home and stay with us.
If she gets in a badrelationship, a dating
relationship I'll go and punchthe guy in the nose.
Dating relationship I'll go andpunch the guy in the nose, Like
like there was a lot of stuffthat you can do as a dad, but I
(08:29):
couldn't fix breast cancer.
I just I just couldn't fix itand, um, it was.
But what I could do was putthings in front of her.
So we had a bucket list andthere was something on her
calendar about every three tofour weeks and in the book I
talk about that.
(08:50):
I think that when somebodyreaches that time in their life
when they're very, very sick andyou know that there's time is
coming to put things in front ofthem, we would walk out of
Disney World and she would go inthree weeks I get to see Luke
Bryan.
Or we would walk out of a LukeBryan concert and she would go
(09:10):
in three weeks we're going toCalifornia, and what I could do
was put that in front of her.
But her warrior-ness was herability to deal with it.
And I'll let you ask anotherquestion, because I'm talking
(09:32):
really long to short questions.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No, it's.
You know, I allow, like whenpeople want to answer a certain
way.
I allow it because our heartsare led to answer.
Like I stated before we startedthe interview, we allow the
free flow because sometimeswe're led, sometimes our, our
(09:54):
people that have gone beyondthis have a special message they
want to share and they gothrough us and we're the
messengers.
Or sometimes, you know, in mycase I, sometimes the Holy
Spirit, has something to say andI just allow and I say what I
need to say, and so there's norhyme or reason.
(10:17):
I'm loving the fact that youcould put one goal in front of
her and that's important to tosay, especially for people whose
time is coming up.
It's also the experiences.
I believe wholeheartedly,because I lived it with my
father's journey, that everystage has its beautiful moments,
(10:41):
embedded in with the painfulrealization that their time is
coming to an end.
But it's those moments of joythat will always live with us,
no matter how long they've beengone.
You can always go back intoyour heart and into your mind
and remember the joy on theirfaces in that concert.
(11:04):
Or the last Christmas.
In my case, I have picturesthat I documented of my father's
last Christmas and just thesimple moments that escape us
sometimes because we're so busydoing and being that we're not
enjoying.
Even in the pain, even in thegrief, there's love and there's
(11:27):
joy.
In the grief there's love andthere's joy, and I love that you
guys gave her those moments,those bucket list items that are
so important, because sometimeswe get so caught up in the
disease itself that we stop tolike, we stop enjoying life.
We just, some people, just endup ending right then and there,
(11:50):
because their spirit dies withthem immediately.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, no, she was Her spirit.
She was a spirit.
I think I mentioned in my noteto you when we were talking
about doing this podcast thatshe grew up with ADD and not
ADHD.
She wasn't hyper, but veryyoung.
We struggled with things likeyou would go into her room and
(12:17):
say, okay, it's time to go toschool, put on your socks and
shoes, put your books in yourbag and meet me in the car in
five minutes, and whenever I didthat, that meant I gave her too
many things to do because shecould only do one at a time, and
so, as a dad, I had to learnthat she was technically
diagnosed when she was in theseventh grade, based on a book
(12:38):
that I read called Driven toDistraction, and what was weird
is that I saw myself in the bookand I actually believe that
some of my success in life is asa result of my ADD.
It's not unusual for me to have50 tabs open on my browser.
Now I read the articles thatsay that you can't multitask and
(12:59):
you're not doing things wellwhen you're multitasking, but I
believe that that has been someof my strength, and what was
interesting to me about her wasthat and I talk about this story
in the book is that her ADDbecame her superpower when she
got sick, because the one thingthat she focused on was living
(13:24):
another day, another week,another month and it was her, it
was her primary thing, thatthat she focused on.
And and I look back of all thetimes in her life, that ADD was
a problem.
When she got into college shesaid, look, the medicine makes
me feel weird, I'm not going totake it anymore.
And you know we, we would seethe the results of that.
(13:49):
But we, we, you know we wouldsee the results of that.
But we, you know, we allowed orwe agreed that it was her
decision as an adult whether sheshould take it or not, but we
definitely saw the difference.
But it became her superpower toonly focus on one thing and that
was living.
Only focus on one thing andthat was living.
(14:11):
I can remember one time she wastalking to the oncologist who
became sort of like agrandfather in her life.
They saw each other so oftenover those four years and Dr
Schwartzberg became almost likethis grandfather relationship
and they were talking about whatmedicine she was on and she
(14:34):
always ended the conversationwith him by saying so if this
doesn't work, what's the nextoption?
And so, even in the times whenshe was talking to an oncologist
about what was about to happenwas talking to an oncologist
(14:55):
about what was about to happen,excuse me.
She was always focused on howdo I?
How do I?
What's next?
What if this doesn't work?
Or if this only works for ashort amount of time, what's
next?
So she was just just so full oflife and so full of wanting to
live just so full of life and sofull of wanting to live.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I love you know.
It does remind me of thehyper-focus ability of ADD
children, because I myself haveADD and my daughter and my son.
My son has the ADHD version,which is more common in boys,
but the ADD is definitely thecommon one in girls and my girl
just got diagnosed in Novemberof this past year and the
(15:37):
hyper-focus is really asuperpower, Like when you zero
in on one thing.
We have the amazing capacity toreally see a project through
because nothing stops us and weare this tenacious individual
and some people think likethat's just so opposite of what
you see an ADD child do, but wecan.
(16:00):
We can have this amazingcapacity and it sounds wonderful
that she did put that in.
What is even more wonderful isthat, as a father, you focused
(16:21):
on what you could do because asprovider, and protector it is
within your dna to want to fixthings and there's men and I've
seen, I've read so many books onit and it it took me a while to
learn that particular um ideaof men.
It must be the most hard thingto do so.
As a father, can you give sometips to fathers that may be
(16:41):
journeying in this stage rightnow, with their girls having a
diagnosis that they cannot fixwhat?
What would you, what tips wouldyou guide them on?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
So the first thing is time.
I took some time off.
My, my CEO and my company atthe time called me and said, bob
, shut your laptop and take asmuch time as you need with your
family.
So I was very blessed and verylucky for that to happen, to
work in a company that was likethat, but I did go back to work
(17:18):
Eventually.
She was sick for four years,and so the number one thing I
would say is time.
You don't have as much time asyou think you do, and so find
ways to spend time with whoeverin your life is at this stage or
in a stage where they're veryill.
Find time.
The second thing is to recordand capture who she was and who
(17:44):
she is.
I talked about having a companycome in and, like a reporter,
come in and do a sort of a Idon't know a Dateline story
about her or a story about herlife, and we never did it and I
wish I had, although now I'vewritten the book, so I guess it
(18:05):
still happened.
But number two is that.
Number three is to just lovethem where they are.
I talk in the book about theplatinum rule of loving people
the way they want to be loved,and what a diagnosis like that
will do is.
It will put everything in yourlife in question.
(18:28):
So she was 30 years old.
She had 30 years of life beforeand everything that I did every
time I yelled at her andthought about it, every time I
was less than what I should havebeen as a dad or what I should
have done better, came intoquestion, because I knew that
(18:49):
there was a limited amount oftime that she was going to be on
earth and so, instead of goingback and hanging out in that
spot, just take those that timethat you have and make up for it
, and you can overcome whateveryou've done.
That you know.
(19:09):
I'm confident that my daughterknew I loved her unconditionally
, but there were times when shehad ADD and whenever she was who
she was, you know I wanted herto be a cool kid and that just
wasn't her.
She wasn't the cool kid.
So I'll say to fathers who havea daughter or son now that's a
(19:31):
little different, a littleunusual, not the cool kids, but
they have their own self-worth.
It's to love them the way theyare, love them who they are,
love them for what they are andbecause when you, when you, if
you ever get into this situation, all of the things that you
(19:56):
wanted fade away to the onething that's left, which is love
for her.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yes, absolutely, and it's really resonating with me
because I have two of those kids, you know, and we,
unfortunately society kind ofpushes an idea that they've got
to be this way or they're notsuccessful or they're not worthy
and it's very subliminal andit's everywhere.
(20:25):
And we fall trapped to it asparents If we come from like, a
high achieving background andyou're constantly checking off
boxes.
I know I did and I fell trappedto that and I caught myself
wanting her to have a betterlife than I did because I didn't
want her to fall into the sametraps I did.
But that's like every parent'swish.
(20:48):
Yeah, I mean, we all want that.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I couldn't understand why she couldn't work from a
checklist.
Like I do everything, I have ato-do list for my to-do list and
I couldn't understand why shecouldn't work from a to-do list.
But the reality is is that'sjust not the way her brain was
wired.
Her brain was wired to dothings as they come up, as she
(21:11):
thinks about them, and so, as adad who's either going through
it or even if you're not goingthrough it and you're listening
to this as a dad, do that andthen, secondarily, as a dad, is
a move towards the nonprofitthere was.
There was a, so what startedthe nonprofit was that I wrote
(21:37):
an article to the CommercialAppeal, which is the local
newspaper here in Memphis,Tennessee, and it was entitled
the Question that Every DadShould Ask His Daughter, and so
I was asking my daughter are youbeing careful when you get in
the daughter?
Are you being careful when youget in the car?
Are you being careful when youwalk in the parking lot?
Do you have gas in the car?
But I never asked her are yougoing to the gynecologist and
(22:00):
are you doing breast self-exams?
I didn't ask her a lot abouther health in general and what I
realized although I don't takeand I don't feel responsible for
her death, but I do realizethat if I had done those things,
then it's possible that shewould have found it at stage one
or stage two and she mightstill be here.
(22:22):
You should ask your daughter isis she going to the
gynecologist or talking to herhealthcare provider about her
breast health, and is she doingself-checks?
Now, a lot of times when I talkto a group of dads about that,
(22:43):
I'll have one dad come up to meafterwards and go dude, there's
no way I'm going to talk to mydaughter about her breast health
.
That's not happening.
That's her mom's job.
And so I hand him one of ourcards that's available on our
website.
That has a shower card thathangs in the shower and it has
the information on the back ofhow to do a breast exam and the
(23:05):
icons on the front, and I handit to him and I say so here's
what you're going to do.
You're going to just tell herthat you were listening to this
guy speak about his daughter andyou're going to tell her that
it's really important that shedo these things and you're going
to hand this to her, and thenshe's going to come back to you
and go, dad, I'm doing it or I'mnot doing it, or you're going
(23:27):
to wait a couple of weeks andyou're going to say, hey, that
thing I gave you, have you beento the doctor yet?
It's that simple, and I've toldthat story so many times.
(23:48):
And how I knew that storymattered was I was in a bar in
Boston, I was working in Bostonand I got through early and
realized that Cheers Bar was acouple of blocks away.
So I walked over to the CheersBar and sat at the bar and it
was very much like everybodyknows your name kind of
environment, because a husbandand wife sat down beside me and
we struck up a conversationwhich is not typically my major,
(24:10):
typically my major.
And then this was about fourmonths, five months after Keisha
died, and the wife asked me aquestion.
She said so, how many kids doyou have?
(24:33):
And there was this blur ofinformation running around in my
brain Do I tell her one my sonand let the other one go?
Or do I tell her the Keisha?
And if I tell her two, what amI going to say about our
daughter?
So I decided that I was goingto say two, because that's how
many kids I had and I told her.
(24:54):
And then I told her the storythat I'm telling now about
Keisha, and she looked at herhusband.
Her husband looked at her andsaid we have two daughters in
their mid 20s and I don't know,do either of them go to the
gynecologist and are either ofthem doing breast exams?
And the wife said I don't know,but by the end of the day,
(25:16):
before I go to sleep, I bet Iknow that answer and you will
too.
And as I got in the Uber or thetaxi and was on the way to the
airport, it occurred to methat's it, that's the nonprofit.
Just take her story and talk toyoung women.
Take her story and other youngwomen's stories.
There's multiple stories on ourwebsite about women who have
(25:38):
found something in their 30s andthen found something and went
to the doctor.
The doctors almost always sayoh, you're too young for breast
cancer.
I'm sure it's nothing.
And sometimes it is nothing,and that's what we want it to be
.
We want you to check and thenfind nothing.
But sometimes it is something,and what's important is to find
(26:00):
it in its early stages, Becauseif you find it in stage zero or
stage one, it actually has abouta 97, 98% survival rate, and so
it's very important to find itearly.
She didn't find it until shewas in her fourth stage, which
was in multiple placesthroughout her body.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
You know, and that leads me to that question,
because what you've discussed isthe purpose that you now live
out through your charity workand this charity and through the
book.
Is this a permanent purpose?
And we now know how youdiscovered it.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So the question is yeah, I think it's a permanent
purpose.
I think that my board, mynonprofit board, asked me
recently for the second time sowhat happens when you die, Bob?
Are we going to be able to keepthis going?
And I said, well, we would haveto have somebody to take over
(27:00):
what my wife and I do.
So it is something that I itmay morph a little bit, and if
we put somebody in charge of thenonprofit besides my wife and I
, it will definitely morph alittle bit.
But our purpose is to ensurethat parents don't go through
what we've been through.
(27:21):
And the purpose of my daughtertelling me to please tell my
story, dad, was I don't wantanybody to go through what you
and mom have gone through and Idon't want anyone to go through
what I've gone through.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
That's a pretty strong purpose yes, that's
something that you get up everyday and you yeah you get it done
because she asks you to.
And she, our warrior of light,is still speaking from where
she's at yes, she is oh, inpeace.
Peace and no longer in pain.
And that gives solace to thedegree you know, but I love her.
(28:00):
I love the charity On the blue.
How can people reach you, Bob,if they want to get a copy of
the book or maybe help?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
with your charity.
So if they want to visit thecharity, they can go to
warriorprincessorg justwarriorprincessorg.
It's really simple.
If they want to find out moreabout the book, they can go to
ontobluecom ontobluebook sorry,ontobluebookcom, and just those
(28:34):
words bookcom and um, just thosewordscom.
And if they want to join us onuh Facebook or on Instagram,
where we post from time to time,they can look up uh warrior
princess or Keisha warriorprincess, and they'll find us on
there.
Um, go to ontobluebookcom.
(28:55):
It has contact information forme, direct on email on Facebook.
It has our Instagram and ourTwitter account, so you can find
me If you look up Bob Furness.
I'm in a lot of places on theinternet, so you can find me.
I appreciate that, Bob theinternet so you can find me.
(29:16):
I appreciate that, bob.
And for the oh and.
And the book is available onamazon.
Sorry, I didn't interrupt you.
The book is available on amazonif you, if you do a search on
on the blue on the blue, on toblue on to blue.
There's a really cool storyabout that.
Probably don't have time totell it, but I'll leave that for
someone to read.
But there's a really cool storyI didn't get that there's a
real internet is it reachable?
(29:37):
alexa, stop, sorry about thatokay there's a really cool story
about that and that's the nameof the book, but it has three
meanings.
It has the meaning of the story, it has the meaning of the
beach and the blue beach, whichwas her favorite place in the
world, and it has the blue ofheaven, which I'm confident is
(29:58):
where she is today.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Oh, I'm more than confident she's there.
I've felt lots of confirmationsthroughout the podcast
interviews, so this isdefinitely in line with what she
wanted and what God wants forthe message to be.
So thank you, bob, for joiningus, for being vulnerable and
sharing your beautiful story andthe story of your beautiful
(30:22):
daughter.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It was a pleasure having you and for the listeners
, of Released Out Reveal Purpose.
Remember Matthew 5.14, be thelight.
Have a wonderful week, staysafe.
Love you all.
Bye now.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So that's it for today's episode of Released Out
Reveal Purpose.
Head on over iTunes or whereveryou listen and subscribe to the
show.
One lucky listener every singleweek who posts a review on
itunes will win a chance ingrand prize drawing to win a 25
000 private vip day with sylviaworship herself.
(31:02):
Be sure to head on over toreleased out reveal purpose
podcastcom and pick up a freecopy of sylvia's gift and join
us on next episode.
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