This month’s cover story, an oral history, explores the enduring impact of the Livestrong movement, once promoted by professional cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong to lend encouragement and support to others suffering from the dread disease. For the writer of our story, the topic hit close to home. Senior editor Emily McCullar was ten years old when she lost her mother to breast cancer, in 1996, eight years before Livestrong was born. Emily says, “My mother’s illness has very much informed my work on this story.”

That work began late last year, when Emily noticed that 2024 would mark the twentieth anniversary of the Livestrong bracelet. She began talking with contributing editor Leah Prinzivalli about a possible pop culture–focused story, perhaps illustrated by photos of some of the celebrities who donned the trendy yellow wristband back then. “That’s what I thought going into it,” Emily recalled. “But then as I got into the reporting among the people who launched Livestrong and people who’ve been affected by it, right up until today, I began to see the story differently.”

Emily said she came to understand “the importance of a physical talisman to help you stay in touch with the part of you that’s strong, whether you’re facing cancer yourself or are dealing with the illness of a loved one or any of the other traumas that people go through.” Through her reporting, Emily found that wearers of Livestrong bracelets, and similar bands, found value in “anything that reminds you that however awful and cruel the hand you’ve been dealt, you’re not alone.”

One of the legacies of Livestrong, Emily discovered, is that today “the bracelets aren’t just for cancer.” Survivors of various other diseases, and their loved ones, wear wristbands specific to their cause, as do those who’ve lost someone to suicide or a car wreck or military service, or those who challenge themselves to finish their first triathlon or to walk the Camino de Santiago, in Spain.

Emily reported and edited the Livestrong story partly while she was visiting her family’s ranch near Brady, about a two-hour drive northwest of Austin, with her dad, retired journalist and author Mike McCullar. Though she didn’t ask him to edit the piece, “there were moments where I’d show him a certain string of words, and we’d talk about the rhythm. He taught me to write, and we’ve always talked about writing. We might discuss one paragraph for twenty minutes.”

She’s pleased that her dad is back to doing some writing of his own, focused on memories of his time as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, directing naval gunfire onto enemy positions near the demilitarized zone. “He seldom talks about that experience,” Emily said, “so it’s good that he’s writing it down.”

At the same time, her dad is helping Emily shape a book she’s been composing for the past couple of years. It’s about her experience almost literally following in the footsteps of her mother, who, as a University of Texas student, took a trip across Europe with a group of friends and kept a detailed journal. “It’s coming along,” Emily says, with a smile in her voice. Clearly, wearing a wristband is only one way of connecting and coping. Another way is writing.

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Of Wristbands and Writing.” Subscribe today.