Mom of 9-Year-Old Influencer With Stage 4 Cancer Shares Emotional Update

Influencer Brie Bird’s mom is keeping her followers in the loop amid her stage IV cancer battle.

“As much as I want the miracle so badly, l feel like the ‘realistic’ part of my mind is grasping for my heart, trying to pull it back into my chest, and tell my soul that I need to surrender; and I don’t want to do that. 😭,” Kendra Bird wrote via Instagram on Monday, October 27. “It’s not in a mother’s nature to say, ‘I’m not powerful enough to change the circumstances,’ and yet I’ve had to accept that. I want to fix it! Why can’t I fix it!? 😡.”

Alongside the message, Kendra uploaded a family photo to the @briestrongerthancancer account — which has more than 980,000 Instagram followers.

“We have many beautiful moments in our home, and this one stood out to me. As I sat by Brielle’s bedside one morning, she turned over and said, ‘Someone is talking to me from heaven, an older person, I don’t know if it was a grandma or grandpa; they said my name,’” Kendra recalled. “I of course, put on my brave face, and asked her what else the angels are saying to her. She couldn’t keep her eyes open for long, but reassured me that she would let me know what else they say.”

She continued, “She’s been sleeping for most of the week, she’s retaining water in her face, feet and belly, she doesn’t eat anymore, and is on oxygen pretty regularly. 💔 I’m hurting. Every day feels heavy.”

Brie, 9, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer five years prior. She was placed in hospice earlier this year. In September, Kendra shared that she was inspired by the way Today’s Sheinelle Jones talked about “finding beauty in the heartbreak” after her husband, Uche Ojeh, died after a battle with cancer earlier this year.

“She mentions that ‘even though she is moving forward, squeezing everything she can out of life, she is fighting for her joy,’” Kendra wrote via Instagram of Jones. “I am often asked, ‘How are you doing?’ It’s become a question, that I not only don’t know how to answer, but I also feel like I’m completely lying, if I reply with one word answers. I know that people know our story, and when I think about what they know, and how broken I really am, I can’t get myself to say, ‘hanging in there’ anymore. I am broken and hurting. I am now going to reply with, ‘I’m fighting for my joy.’”

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She continued, “Every day we have a choice. A choice to ‘squeeze everything that we can out of life,’ a choice to love and serve others, to be more accepting, more kind, more understanding, and more compassionate. Some days this might seem harder to do, but that’s OK, because it gives us a chance to change. Life is heavy, but fight for your joy! You deserve it. The people around you deserve it. And if someone can’t seem to find their joy, fight for theirs too. 🤟🏼.”

Jones replied in the comments section, “This touches me so 🥹💗💗💗💗💗.”