Season to Share: Stricken with cancer, single mother fears her family may lose their West Palm Beach home
With the diagnosis of Stage 3 breast cancer, Liana Curbelo has put her job and dreams on hold. She fears her family will lose the month-to-month apartment they rent in West Palm Beach, and she worries her 3-year-old daughter will be robbed of a normal childhood.
But Liana has always smiled in the face of misfortune. Even now, she finds reasons to be grateful.
► 2022 Season to Share nominees: Help your neighbors in need
She survived childhood poverty, created a life in America, escaped an abusive relationship and single-handedly provided for her mother and daughter.
And she is certain that with a little help, she can best her latest challenge.
Liana's life began in Amarillas, Cuba. Her father left before she was born, and her mother's health left her unable to work. Liana and her great-grandfather had nearly nothing after an economic collapse hit the country in 1991. Buying soap, cooking oil and other everyday items — if they could find any — drained their monthly savings.
Liana remembers a time when she had only an egg to eat for supper, while her great-grandfather had a bit of pork. He passed the meat to her and insisted she take his share.
“He wanted the best always for me,” Liana said.
When prostate cancer took her great-grandfather's life, 7-year-old Liana became the head of her household.
Liana, now 31, smiled as she recalled her trying childhood. It was tough, but hardship brought everyone closer together, she said.
Her grandmother lived in the United States and sent money back to Cuba. And her neighbors in Amarillas became extended family members, sharing tomatoes, oranges, pears, limes, coconuts and coffee plants from their home gardens.
Liana found strength in her ability to overcome obstacles. She also started to realize her life's passion: helping others.
“My life was so hard when I’m born, but I’m here for some reason, right?”
A new, hard-knock life in America
As a teenager, Liana and her mother moved to the U.S. in search of a better life. The American Dream did not come easy.
She worked nearly 100 hours a week to support them both, splitting her time between a makeup factory and a medical supplies factory.
Liana, then a student at John I. Leonard High, arranged her work schedule around school. Sleep became a rarity and her feet constantly ached.
But her savings, and her reasons to smile, only grew.
Liana's grandmother housed her and her mother during their first year in the United States. The grandmother also drove Liana — who had no car or license — to and from work and school each day.
With hard work, time and a little help, Liana achieved financial independence, allowing her to rent a home for herself and her mother.
"Everything hard in my life made me more strong," she said.
‘She is my sky.’
Life again tested Liana’s fortitude in 2018, when she met the man who would later abuse her.
“That was him,” she said, pointing to a chip in one of her front teeth — the chip she later took to hiding, smiling less often and shying away from pictures,
But that relationship – one of her biggest challenges yet – also gave Liana her greatest gift: a baby she named Sky.
“Because she is my sky,” Liana said. “She is my world.”
Liana escaped the abuse. And whenever she talks about her daughter, Liana smiles again — wider and prouder than ever before.
Liana hit with sudden health complications
Sky would prove to be a source of strength for Liana during her latest hurdle.
After feeling a lump on her body, Liana learned she had Stage 3 breast cancer in June. She froze in disbelief.
How could such a short life be filled with so much struggle? And how, she wondered, could she have advanced cancer after feeling fine just weeks before?
“I’m going to die,” she remembers thinking a day after her diagnosis. “I already wanted to say bye to everybody.”
Liana can no longer work as a certified nursing assistant for the elderly, making it hard to provide for her family, and halting her dream of becoming a full-fledged nurse.
She can no longer take Sky to Chuck E. Cheese, her favorite weekend getaway. And the mother struggles to afford her daughter’s daycare, where at least Sky is shielded from Liana's suffering.
Liana manages a host of medications and side effects. She's turned to selling whatever she can to pay the bills — a television, her jewelry and even toys that Sky has outgrown.
And through it all, Liana smiles.
Liana has overcome the sense of doom that followed her diagnosis. Sky, she said, gives her the energy to keep fighting, and Liana's faith in God gives her hope for a better tomorrow.
She had to fight — for her mother and daughter, and for her own dream of one day working in a hospital.
“I’m born to help people,” Liana said.
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Liana Curbello's Wish
Since her diagnosis with Stage 3 breast cancer, Liana Curbello's top priority has been ensuring her daughter and mother have a stable home. Without a helping hand, the mother fears Sky may spend her childhood in motels. Her family needs $65,000 to purchase a manufactured home. Liana could also use help to buy her daughter gifts for Christmas. And with medical bills piling up, Liana is struggling to handle her car payments, electricity bills and other everyday expenses.
Nominating agency: Families First of Palm Beach County.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Charity: West Palm Beach mom with breast cancer needs help
