Broken Bones Foundation

Posted by IGA

In Sept 2006, I found out that my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon and liver cancer. They originally had given her 2 to 3 months to live at that point. I was on tour at the time and my sister had called me to tell me the news. The feeling was devastating. I was fearful, scared for her. She underwent extreme chemotherapy treatment, as that was the only choice to try to fight the disease. By Christmas she had already beaten the odds. She was going in the right direction, trying to eradicate it and there was a glimpse of hope. She battled for 6 months until spring of 07 when an opportunity for them to do a surgery to try to remove the cancer from her body. She took that risk and unfortunately it didn’t work. The cancer came back stronger and eventually over took her. In September of 2007 she passed away. During that time there was a lot of emotions going through me. I was proud of her, inspired by her courage and strength. It’s a fight for your life that nobody understands until you are going through it. I admired that about her. During that time I was still in the process of chasing my dream to make music my life. She was always a huge supporter of my dream and loved that I was chasing mine.

One of the ways I dealt with these emotions was through writing music. Originally when I got the news of her being diagnosed I remember being on tour. It was a bittersweet time for me and things were on the up for us. But I was in a sad state of mind. Matty and I were playing and writing and the broken bones song was starting to come together. It was fueled and inspired by my mother and allowed me to express my fear and how I felt for her at the time. It was a lot about the self-feeling and reflection on yourself. I’d tell myself “you’re a good son, a good person" and I wanted to be there for someone going through the same emotions and feelings I was going through. Dealing with all the doubt but also remaining hopeful and positive. Broken Bones came from this and the song became a torch for her spirit once the record was done.

When we started playing Broken Bones live, Rich would explain the meaning of the song every time we played it, in every city and it allowed me to connect with my mom again. People would come up to me and share their story with me once we got off stage and that really impacted me, the rest of the band and the people close to us. It felt good. People were coming together through the song that ultimately led us to create the Broken Bones Foundation, to help create an impact to help fight cancer.

The Broken Bones foundation was created in memory of my mother and this blog is to have anyone who wants to share their story, connect with others and to continue the fight to rock cancer.

-Julien

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