Kaylin Gawf is only 28, a single mom from Oklahoma, and she’s facing the unimaginable: terminal metastatic breast cancer that’s spread to her brain. Doctors have told her she has just weeks left, and she’s now in hospice care.
Kaylin has two little ones who mean the world to her—a 9-year-old daughter named Jace and a 6-year-old son named Memphis. Three years ago, she was diagnosed with HER2+ breast cancer, which had already spread to her lungs, bones, and lymph nodes.
She fought hard, going through multiple rounds of chemo, even two brain surgeries along the way. But by March 2023, it reached her brain, and she was also dealing with leptomeningeal disease (LMD) plus Cushing’s disease, which caused congestive heart failure and a lot of weight gain. She never gave up hope—she really believed she’d beat this and stay here for her kids.
Then, just a few weeks before Christmas, everything shifted. The doctors basically said there was nothing more they could do. “My world changed forever in that moment,” she wrote on her GoFundMe page. “I’m so heartbroken for my children and family.”
The thing that breaks your heart the most is what she said her biggest fear is: not dying itself, but leaving her kids behind with even more pain, stress, and financial weight on top of their grief. She’s not ready to go—she’s made that clear—but she wants to do whatever she can now to protect them and make things a little easier when she’s gone.
So, with that strength she’s always had, Kaylin set up a GoFundMe herself. It’s to cover her funeral costs, end-of-life expenses, and hopefully leave something for her children’s future, maybe even in a trust. “I am so not ready to leave them just yet,” she wrote, “but I want to do everything I can to protect them and ease their future, even when I’m no longer here.”
Her mom, Myra Gawf, has been by her side through all of it, and you can hear the pain in her voice when she talks about it. She told a local news station how tough it is to watch her daughter suffer every day and know she can’t fix it. “There’s just nothing they could do for her; it spread that much,” Myra said. “They’ve already done five different cycles of chemotherapy, and there’s no more because her body can’t handle it. We thought we’d beat it. Now, we’re planning a funeral. So, it’s just heartbreaking.”
But even in the middle of all this, Myra can’t help but be amazed by her daughter’s heart. Kaylin still wants to look out for her kids, plan ahead for them, and she refuses to complain. “If she doesn’t complain for what she’s going through, what do we have to complain about?” Myra said. “She inspires us all to do that, especially me. She’s my little hero is what she is.”
This is the kind of quiet courage that stays with you. Kaylin’s story reminds us how fragile life can be, but also how much love one person can pour out, even when time is running out. If you’re moved by it, her GoFundMe is there for anyone who wants to help lighten the load for her family.