Hey there, listeners, it's the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. I'm Jasmine Morris, and I want to remind you to keep sharing your stories on our voicemail at 702-706 Talk. As always, we'll have a new prompt for you at the end of the episode.

This week, we're going to hear from our military voices initiative, recording the stories of service members and their families.

Army Sergeant First Class, Anna Cherubnina, served for almost 13 years.

In Afghanistan, she was a mental health specialist, helping soldiers cope with a stress of combat.

It was her dream job, but at the same time, she went through a string of personal tragedies.

Her long-term boyfriend passed away, and then a few years later, her fiancé died as well, and then her grandfather died too.

Not long after that, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, forcing her to end her

career in the military. Through all of this, she had the support of her grandmother, who raised her.

And so when she passed away, Anna found herself at the lowest point of her life.

My grandma was my rock. She was the mother that I didn't have. On my birthdays, she would spend hours and hours making this special cake just for me. So after she passed away, every single day, I would wake up telling myself, I just want to die.

It's that depression that makes you think that there's nothing, there's no hope, there's no help.

But then one morning, dreading to be awake, I saw this beautiful fox in my backyard, and I've never seen foxes there

before. I usually have a dog bowl out there for my dogs, so I'm still admiring this beautiful

creature, and then it turns around and takes a massive piss right into the dog's water bowl

and I just had this like moment of awakening I'm like what the hell I have let my life become

a bowl full of fox piss and that was the turning point for me.

I knew I had to keep going.

That's when I saw a post asking for folks living with MS that would be interested in hiking to Everest base camp.

I knew from serving in the military that when you're in the right mindset, you're able to push

your body to the limits.

And I needed that reminder.

I'm still that resilient, tenacious person that was there before all this loss.

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