Volleyball brought us together — and it's how I carry him forward.

Kurt was a basketball guy through and through, but when he wandered over to a volleyball game one day at Western Oregon University and introduced himself, something clicked. We married on July 7, 2010, and some of our best years together were spent on the court, coaching volleyball side by side. It was our thing — the place where we were just us, doing something we both loved.

Cystic fibrosis was part of Kurt's life from the very beginning. He was rushed into emergency surgery for his intestines as a newborn — a hallmark of CF. At that time, the life expectancy for a child with cystic fibrosis was just 7 years old. But Kurt was stubborn in the best way, and so was science. Thanks in large part to funding and research supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, treatments improved and life expectancy climbed. By the time we met in 2008, it had reached 34.

Kurt carried the double Delta F508 mutation — one of the most common and severe forms of CF. He pushed through it with remarkable determination, continuing to work even as the disease progressed to the point where he was arriving at the office on oxygen, giving everything he had just to get through the day. On Christmas Eve 2011 — after two agonizing dry runs — he received his double lung transplant.

What followed was one of the best seasons of our lives. He recovered beautifully. We were back on the court coaching together. We traveled to Glacier National Park to celebrate his 30th birthday. He was healthy, he was thriving, and we were living.

Then the decline came again.

Kurt fought with everything he had, spending three weeks in the Stanford ICU, listed for a second transplant, his body holding on while we waited for a call that never came. He passed away on March 6, 2014. Four months later, on June 24, 2014, his son Beckham was born.

Kurt never got to meet him — but he is everywhere in Beckham's life. In the stories I tell. In the love of his grandparents, family, and friends who keep his memory alive every day.

Since Kurt's death, a treatment has been developed specifically targeting the Delta F508 mutation — one that works so effectively it is expected to increase life expectancy by an additional 30 years. It came a few years too late for Kurt. But that is exactly why this work matters. Every dollar raised funds research that becomes the next breakthrough — the one that arrives in time for someone else's Kurt.

I still coach volleyball. I think about him every time I'm on the court. My volleyball training business, Elevate Volleyball Training, honors Kurt's memory by giving back to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation — because his fight deserves to live on in more ways than one.

I walk every year under the team name Kurt created — Infinite Striders — because that's exactly what he was. And exactly what this mission requires.

Because Kurt's impact doesn't end. And neither does our commitment to finding a cure.