 Right before practice of camp, going in my rookie year, I got a, you know, call or text from my family saying that she had been diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer and I didn't know how to really, you know, it's a surreal feeling when that hits you. You don't know how to react. Something that made her incredibly happy was just watching me play football and living out my dream and, you know, she was checking in always, you know, proud of every single Sunday to go out there, but yeah, that was definitely a challenge, but in a good part, you know, she was really happy that I was able to go out and play. I was always the supporter, the taxi cab driver, but also the one who, after a hard day, Chris knew he could come to me and he could just relax and be himself. So my mom was always the one chaperoning all of us to practices of our own and so we went to, in my first youth football practice, my mom took me, she got me dressed, I wore, you know, the thigh pads and my knee pads and knee pads where my thigh pads are because they were about the same size, which is just hilarious, but she would take me to the different practices for years, constantly taxi servicing pretty much everybody so they could do, you know, the things that made them happy in life. Hey Chris, how you doing buddy? Great Mr. Blank, thank you so much. Well we're more than excited to have you here. Safe travels and congrats to you and your family. With the 14th bank in the 2019 NFL draft, the Atlanta Falcons select Chris Lindstrom. It's a dream come true, you know, the first emotion I had was like relief and then it was just the excitement that, you know, just wanted to burst, but you're also trying to stay calm and, you know, try to savor the moment, but it's, you know, surreal. She was super proud and her biggest thing was always her kids and raising us to be, you know, good people and then also, you know, support us to have all the opportunities in life and I think she was just taking back and appreciating, you know, how proud she was in the moment of all of it and, you know, decades of work put into all of us and for me to be able to live out my dream was really, really cool. You know, she finished her first wave of treatment at the end of my rookie year and she went to get the scan, the CT scan to see and she still had a tumor and that's when they told her she was going to have two years to live. By that point it was the off-season, so to be able to go and sit in there with her at those meetings and watch, you know, the toll it took on her but really the whole family and how hard that is to hear. You know, I went out of the practice field, I was kind of crying one day out at practice and went up to lead our online coach and then talk to Art and kind of told him what was going on because we had like the staff turnover and I didn't know if they really knew and I didn't really talk about it but talking to them, they were incredibly supportive and that was meant a lot. The guys in the locker room were incredible. As we were able to, you know, share her story throughout the Falcons, the amount of outpour that she got from the city of Atlanta and really people throughout was really amazing and I think that gave her so much strength in her fight against cancer and something like that. My family is, you know, forever grateful for how impactful everybody was for her and the strengths and stuff that they provided. Heading into last season, like mid-November, and that was kind of like the last time I saw my mom as herself, you know, and that was challenging and, you know, coach let me go home, let me have the weekend off. She got really bad, I think it was Carolina, then 49ers week and where she was like, hey, like she was bedridden, had two weeks to live, spent that week with her, flew down and played the game, flew right home after San Francisco and then she passed Monday night in the Tuesday morning, it was really powerful to be able to be there with her and my whole family at all those times. Every high or every, you know, moment you get really happy is that, you know, she's not there and, you know, you want to celebrate that with them and with her and, you know, for every high it's really an equal low and that's probably one of the most challenging things my family faces with it. Just something that my mom always kind of talked about and wanted to do was, you know, she always loved still feeling beautiful and the challenges that, you know, cancer gives is, you know, it's just as much of a mental toll as it is physical. The mental aspect for her was, you know, fighting it every day when she's bald and, you know, doesn't have her eyelashes and, you know, doesn't want to feel to get dressed up and feel beautiful and that was really challenging to see her go through that. So to watch these women last night, they looked stunning, you know, you could see the confidence beaming through them and it was really awesome to be a part of and then just hearing their different stories was amazing too and how they all encourage each other, you know, people's prayers and thoughts help power them through in their own individual fights, know that they're not alone and that a lot of people are praying for them and, you know, hopefully that can make an impact in their own fight and for their families. I see her every single time out in the stands, you know, and I try to envision that of her, you know, especially pre-game or during the National Anthem, you envision them, you know, being there watching you and, you know, you're there supporting you and I think my dad always texts me all the time that she's at the games so it's something for sure that she's always with me. What you see on that field, I see the kind, compassionate, humble Chris. It's just such a surreal experience because, you know, that's your little boy and now he's a man, it's as exhilarating as it is, it's also very bittersweet because I've done my job and now literally it's time for him to fly.