May 6, 2003 By Cindy Ekas-Brown 7 min read

Lori Aultman Laraia remembers standing next to her mother’s bedside at the Uniontown Hospital as the dying woman whispered “I love you” into her daughter’s ear for the last time. Just moments later, 54-year-old Carolyn Swearer Aultman of Perryopolis lost her courageous nine-year battle with breast cancer.

Before she died on April 9, 1997, Aultman handed her daughter a beautiful letter that Laraia has cherished for the past six years and will keep for the rest of her life.

“In the letter, my mother told me to be strong,” Laraia said as she began to sob during a recent telephone interview from her home in Castle Rock, Colo., which is just outside Denver. “She told me that there are difficult things in life that you don’t understand, and you don’t realize why you have to go through these difficult times. But there is always a purpose. I have always remembered my mother’s words in that special letter.”

Her mother’s death was a devastating and emotional experience that Laraia will never forget. Nine months later, her father, James, who spent every day sitting next to his wife’s grave at the Flatwoods Cemetery, suffered a massive heart attack and died.

And now, Laraia said she is finally beginning to understand the tragic losses that devastated her life and the meaning of her mother’s dying words.

Her mother’s death inspired Laraia, a 1987 graduate of Frazier High School who won the Miss Junior Pennsylvania pageant in 1986-87, to create and design a pewter picture frame adorned with pink ribbons that she calls “Faces of Courage.” The pink ribbon is the universal symbol for breast cancer awareness.

The 6-inch-by-4-inch picture frame will debut on Mother’s Day, May 11, during the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, a fund-raising event for breast cancer research and awareness.

Laraia, who is flying from Denver to Pittsburgh a few days before the event, plans to walk in the race for the first time and donate a portion of the proceeds from the picture frames to breast cancer research.

“My dream when I started this was to have the picture frames debut in Pittsburgh because I’m originally from Perryopolis, and Pittsburgh is my hometown,” she said. “It gives me a little bit of comfort knowing that something good will come out of both of my parent’s deaths.

“I want to make sure that my 4-year-old daughter sees Mommy working for such a good cause, and maybe it will help her in the future because she will realize how important it is to raise money to help with breast cancer research and other important causes,” she added.

The family’s tragic story began in February 1988 when Laraia’s mother, who was only 45 years old at the time, was first diagnosed with breast cancer.

Nine years later, Laraia said her mother went to the Fayette Regional Cancer Center, which is located along McClellandtown Road near the Uniontown Hospital, for a full body bone scan.

The results of the bone scan were devastating. Laraia said doctors told her mother that the breast cancer had metastasized and spread to her bones. The doctors told Aultman, a 1961 graduate of Uniontown High School, that the bone cancer was terminal, and she only had a couple of months to live.

“My mother had courageously fought breast cancer for nine years, and she didn’t want to hear or believe the news that she was going to die,” Laraia said.

Several weeks after her mother received the depressing news, Laraia flew from her Denver home to southwestern Pennsylvania to spend some quality time with her mother before she died.

“We went shopping at Kaufmann’s and Gabe’s because we loved to go shopping together,” she said. “We went out to dinner, and we had a wonderful time. We spent a lot of time talking. She seemed to be in very good health even though she was dying. She didn’t seem sick, and her spirits were pretty good considering what was happening in her life.”

But Laraia could only stay about one week before she headed back to her Denver home, where her husband, Craig, is employed as a mortgage broker and she previously worked as a teacher.

A few weeks later, Laraia said her father called to tell her that her mother had been admitted to the Uniontown Hospital, but she seemed to be doing fine.

But then Laraia received a disturbing phone call from Irene Johnson, the mother of one of her best friends, who advised her to pack her bags immediately and catch the next flight for Pittsburgh.

“I knew the situation was serious because Irene Johnson said, ‘Lori, you need to come out here right now.’ As I was packing my bags to leave, my mother-in-law, Cheryl Laraia, told me to pack a nice dress. She was trying to tell me that I would need a nice dress for my mother’s funeral, but I still didn’t get it.”

Laraia said she is thankful that she, her father James and her sister, Cheryl Aultman of Virginia, as well as other family members and friends, comforted her mother at her bedside during her final moments.

“We drove straight to the hospital as soon as I flew from Denver to Pittsburgh because I knew she didn’t have long to live,” Laraia said. “My mother tried to fight to stay alive, but even the pastor said it was time for her and the family to let go. Within an hour of the family members saying their goodbyes, she died.”

Three months after her father died, Laraia, who suffers from endometriosis and was told that she would never have a child, miraculously conceived a baby on April 10, 1998, which would have been her mother’s birthday.

“I really think that my daughter was my gift from God when my parents left me,” she said. “The doctors couldn’t explain how or why I became pregnant because they told me that I would never be able to have a child. And I haven’t been able to conceive another child since then even though I have tried.”

Lori and her husband, Craig Laraia, named the baby Jamie Lynn, after her father, James, and her mother, Carolyn.

Last October, Lori and her daughter, who was 3 years old at the time, walked in the Susan G. Komen Race in Denver, Colo., in memory of her mother and to raise money for breast cancer research.

“I waited until I thought my daughter was old enough to understand the meaning of what we were doing,” Laraia said. “My daughter definitely understood that Grandma Aultman died of breast cancer before she was born, and we were walking in the race to raise money for breast cancer research and in memory of her grandma.”

Laraia said a photo was taken of her and her daughter walking in the race. After the race, Laraia began shopping for a suitable picture frame, but she couldn’t find what she wanted. That inspired her to create and design her own frame.

“We had this beautiful picture taken of me and my daughter,” she said. “I really wanted my daughter to see it and remember what we did for grandma.”

Laraia said 500 of the “Faces of Courage” picture frames will be available during the Pittsburgh Race for the Cure. They will be sold for $15 each, which is a discount price because the frames are actually valued at $45.

For more information about the picture frames, visit the Web site www.facesofcourage.com

or call 1-800-330-6760 to order the frames.