Victrinia's Fundraising with Friends 2026 Fundraising Page
Victrinia Ridgeway
Victrinia Ridgeway
Many of you may not know that I work for a cancer support non-profit. I've worked in this field for almost 19 years. In fact, I often tell people that God... the universe... or my good karma brought Eric and me to this place, so that we would be ready for what was coming. Please read our story, and see if you would like to support this work with me. xox - V
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Cancer Changed Everything
I was 37 when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
Two months earlier, I had gotten engaged. I had always wanted children — not abstractly, but deeply. I knew my window was narrowing, but I still believed in miracles. I still held hope in the maybe.
It was the beginning of winter when we met with the surgeon. A renowned oncology specialist — a research fellow from Fred Hutch working at Swedish in Seattle — sat behind a large desk. Pale, north-facing light filtered through the window. I remember how thin it felt.
We were lined up in front of him.
Eric. Me. My mom. My dad.
Early detection meant I had a rare chance at a surgical cure. The recommendation was clear: remove all of my reproductive organs.
I asked about preserving fertility.
About waiting.
About options.
I had never seen fear in my father before that moment.
“It is not an option to risk your life for a maybe.”
It wasn’t anger. It was quiet terror. Love in its most protective form.
Cancer is often measured in visible ways — chemotherapy, hair loss, radiation.
I had none of that.
On paper, I was lucky.
But I lost the ability to carry my own children.
Cancer costs us in quiet spaces. In baby showers that still ache years later. In the middle of the night when you grieve a future that no longer exists. In the invisible reshaping of identity.
I may not have lost my hair.
But I lost just as much.
And yet, cancer also revealed love.
Eric slept on the floor in the living room because he was worried about throwing his arms around me in my sleep. Friends from the bonsai community — across three continents — pooled funds to have two dozen roses waiting for me at home. My family mobilized. My community showed up.
Cancer stripped away what was fluff. It crystallized what matters. It changed the language of every conversation in my work with people facing cancer... and really, every conversation in my life became one that mattered.
Survival is not the whole story.
Emotional support is not extra. It is essential.
My Commitment
This year, I am setting a personal goal of $10,000.
I believe we will meet it. And perhaps exceed it.
In a world crowded with worthy asks, I am choosing faith — faith that what I have poured into this community over the years will return as an affirmation of support that benefits thousands of people this year alone.
Every gift is 100% tax-deductible.
But more than that — every gift is personal.
Whether you give $5, $25, or $2,500, I will receive it with deep humility. Not because of the amount, but because you chose to stand with me.
If you are in a position to make a leadership gift that anchors this goal, I invite you to do so... I would love nothing more than to offer a challenge match.
If you are moved to give what feels right in your own capacity, know that it matters just as much.
Connection changes everything.
Let’s ensure that no one facing cancer has to navigate the emotional terrain alone.
Will you stand with me?
MAR
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Friends… we are $950 away from completing the first level of this fundraising challenge.
I’m honestly a little overwhelmed by the generosity that has already shown up. This story of bonsai, cancer, and love is turning into something real and meaningful in the world.
Cancer Lifeline exists because every person facing cancer needs support that meets them where they are.
Some people need the circle of a support group, where they can finally say the things that are too heavy to carry alone.
Some people need retreats where connection and quiet healing can unfold in community.
Others, especially the more introverted among us, may simply need trusted information about how to support their health and wellbeing.
And many need the steady presence of one-on-one counseling with our incredible therapists and providers.
Whatever someone needs in their moment… Cancer Lifeline meets them there with warmth and welcome.
In many ways, it reminds me of how we care for our bonsai trees.
When a tree is struggling, or weathered by forces beyond its control, we don’t abandon it. We bring it closer. Beside the house. Into the cold frame. Into the greenhouse. We shelter it. We tend it. We move heaven and earth to help it recover.
Because we love it.
This work — this fundraiser — is how we create that same care for people facing cancer.
If you’ve been thinking about giving, now would be a beautiful moment to help carry us across this first milestone. Every gift matters, and every act of generosity helps ensure that no one has to face cancer alone.
MAR
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Same tree after nearly two decades together.
First tree I ever got Eric
It's A Bonsai Love Story
Before cancer ever entered my life, bonsai did.
In 2005 I was living in a quiet, isolated place called Seabeck, Washington. My bonsai journey was just beginning. Internet access was spotty, phone service even worse, but I had discovered something magical — the early bonsai forums online. BonsaiTalk. Bonsai Nut. Small digital villages where people from around the world shared trees, ideas, and long conversations about art and patience.
At the time there were very few women in bonsai. On those forums it was maybe one woman for every fifty men.
Somehow, in that little corner of the internet, I found my first community.
And that is where I met Eric.
He had a pseudonym then — Ang3lFir3 — and for quite a while I wasn’t even sure if he was a man or another woman. Later he confessed that he had been quietly watching my posts for some time before finally working up the nerve to start a private chat with me.
That chat turned into hours of conversation.
Those conversations turned into a long-distance relationship.
Cell phones barely worked where I lived, so I would sometimes have to drive closer to town just to find a signal strong enough to talk to him.
Eventually, I flew to Texas to visit a friend and drove up to Oklahoma to meet Eric in person for the first time.
But before we ever met face to face, Eric had already changed the course of my life in a way neither of us could have predicted.
At the time I was on sabbatical from a high-pressure social services job. Eric began helping me search for new work and one day he found a small retreat center in Washington called Harmony Hill, dedicated to supporting people living with cancer.
He told me, “You have to apply for this. It’s exactly in your wheelhouse.”
He researched the organization thoroughly, even learning the name of the retreat center’s beloved cat — Cali — and sent me everything he could find.
He believed in me before I even believed in myself.
So I applied.
I went to the interview, and though they had already chosen another candidate the day before, something about the conversation changed their minds.
They offered me the job.
In the fall of 2007 Eric moved from Oklahoma to Washington so we could begin our life together. While he built connections in the region, he volunteered as a technology specialist at Harmony Hill. That volunteer work led to a glowing recommendation from our founder, Gretchen Schodde, which helped Eric land his first job in Washington at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center in the Cancer Epidemiology Department.
So there we were.
Eric working at Fred Hutch.
Me working at Harmony Hill.
Both of us, in different ways, serving people facing cancer.
Neither of us knew then that cancer would soon enter our own story.
In 2008 we attended the regional bonsai convention in Spokane, Washington. On the evening of Eric’s birthday — after gathering a little liquid courage — he asked me the most awkward proposal imaginable:
“If I asked you to marry me… would you say no?”
I said, “Yes… I mean no… I mean I would not say no!”
It was a magical evening among our bonsai family. Our teacher Daniel Robinson was there with his wife Diane, and one of the great artists of our field, Kathy Shaner, the first woman and first non-Japanese master certified by the Nippon Bonsai Society.
Kathy was actually the first person we told we were engaged.
She celebrated with us so warmly that by the end of the convention she jokingly threatened to steal us away from Daniel as apprentices. Daniel gave her the most dramatic puppy-dog eyes and asked why she would do such a thing.
There was so much laughter. So much love.
Two months later, just before Thanksgiving, my doctor called.
“I’m so sorry kiddo,” he said. “You have cancer.”
Suddenly the life we had just begun together was filled with uncertainty.
There were moments of heartbreak — especially when I realized cancer might mean I would never have children.
One night, trying to comfort me, Eric looked at me with complete seriousness and said,
“Babe… I will buy you all the children you want. And I will have paid someone else to potty train them.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Because beneath the humor was the truth that mattered most:
I had chosen the right partner for this life.
And he proved it, again and again, walking beside me through everything that followed.
The tree in this post, is the very first tree I ever gave to Eric. Most people who know us are very familiar with it.... But this story, and what came after, is the story woven through that tree... Of what bonsai, great love, and continued care can achieve between two people. 💜
MAR
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ALL PEOPLE MAKING DONATIONS to my page this weekend will be entered into a drawing for this Copper Cricket! And... for every $500 in base donations, I will add another tenpai to the drawing!
MAR
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Something beautiful to come.... An old JBP gets a new pot.
MAR
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The breaking of buds on a larch is always a metaphor for new beginnings for me.
MAR
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Not much says hope to me like plum blossoms in the late of winter.
MAR
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A spring view into my beautiful garden with Eric....
Because I am alive... and loved... I get to create beauty every day.
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