As her life neared its end, Maddy Baloy took to TikTok to document her final days living with stage 4 cancer. The influencer created a lasting legacy by posting diary-style vlogs and candid conversations, videos that resonated with millions of viewers online. She also shared her journey to fulfill items on her bucket list, which ranged from getting a tattoo with her grandma to meeting celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
“My mind shifted, and I was like, ‘I am going to get every ounce of life that I can out of this,'” Baloy told PEOPLE in March 2024. “There’s nothing we can do. So I may as well have some fun.”
Baloy died at age 26 in May 2024, about 14 months after her initial diagnosis. She was surrounded by her loved ones, including her boyfriend Louis Risher, and the social media star’s memory is continuously carried on by her family and friends.
One year after her death, her mother, Carissa Talmage, looks back on how she grapples with Baloy’s absence every day. In an emotional personal essay told to PEOPLE’s Zoey Lyttle, Talmage recalls the greatest lessons Baloy imparted and some of the most impactful moments the mom and daughter shared toward the end of her life.
Her name was Madison Baloy, but to those who loved her and the millions who followed her courageous chapter, she was simply Maddy.
Returning from California, and what would become the finale of her bucket list, a debilitating pain was now radiating throughout Madison’s mid-section to include her back and reproductive organs. My phone rang: “Mommy, I need you!” she said. It was at that moment that I too would be making a final trip to rage against a force my daughter was never intended to defeat.
As Maddy’s pain intensified, so did my resolve. Every day, every sleepless night, every quiet cry in the dark became part of this relentless campaign to preserve hope. Yet, even amidst the shadows, there were glimmers — moments that defied logic or explanation. They came like whispers from a place just beyond our reach, not tied to any belief system, but tethered to something unmistakably human: love, transcendence and the mystery of what it means to truly be.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Maddy Baloy.
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In one of her final, vivid moments of clarity, she awoke from a dream with a glow I can only describe as divine. She spoke of God, and she told me, “He is nothing but love, pure love. Our job is only love.”
It was a moment that shook me deeply — not because it was religious, but because it was real. Her words pierced through the haze of sorrow and became an enduring truth.
This isn’t a story about religion; though faith, grace, compassion, anger, joy, sorrow and a love so profound that it shattered my very identity are all central to it. When Madison took her last breath, she also took with her the essence of who I had been for the past 26 years. The life I knew ended in that moment. What remained was a cavernous, black void — so heavy that even breathing became an intentional act.
Since Madison’s passing, an aching silence has taken root in the hearts of all who knew her — family, friends and the thousands who followed her journey on social media. Her presence was magnetic; she radiated a rare kind of light that drew people in, not just because she was beautiful or brave, but because she was real. Unapologetically honest, fiercely loving and disarmingly funny, Maddy had a way of making you feel seen, even from a distance. Now that light is gone, and the void it leaves is unbearable.
Grief arrives in waves — sometimes in quiet tears, sometimes in guttural sobs, sometimes in the simple, brutal ache of reaching for your phone to text her, only to remember a painstaking reality. The world feels dimmer without her spark, and those who loved her find themselves navigating a landscape of loss that feels endless, haunted by the question of what more her life could have been, and holding tight to the love she left behind. Though friends and family have found a semblance of peace in the months since her passing, for me, the heaviness lingers. I wear it like a second skin.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Maddy Baloy.
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Madison’s journey wasn’t just about battling cancer; it was about acceptance. Like many young adults, Maddy was chasing a comforting delusion that only existed in the television shows she grew up watching, and without warning, she began confronting mortality with a courage few are ever asked to summon.
From the moment of her diagnosis, she was forced into a reckoning far deeper than medicine could reach. Doctors gave her four to six weeks to live. I remember them telling her, “If we can get you six months, start living your bucket list.”
Imagine being just 24 years old, newly fitted with an irreversible colostomy and told to start dying. Without warning, plans for the future became preparations for the end.
At the time of her terminal diagnosis, Madison was a kindergarten teacher in St. Petersburg, Fla. She was living a life familiar to many young adults: sharing a home with her boyfriend of six years, committed to her health, balancing the promise of her career with the quiet rhythms of everyday life. When she began to lose weight, she was thrilled, thinking it was a payoff from her clean eating and dedicated workouts. But on Presidents Day 2023, her body sent a message she couldn’t ignore. Dizzy under lights, drenched in sweat, dry-heaving; it was enough to push her to urgent care.
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What followed was a blur. She was given a direct pass to the ER, and imaging revealed a mass in her colon. They expected it would be a standard biopsy surgery, but when surgeons opened her abdomen, they found something far more harrowing: the buildup of fluid known as ascites and aggressive cancer spreading from lung to pelvis, hip to hip, touching every organ and node in its path. Her diagnosis: terminal, stage 4 gastrointestinal adenocarcinoma and peritoneal cancer.
From that point on, choices became fewer and narrower. Still, Madison refused to be defined by statistics or timelines. Together we decided she would undergo chemotherapy — but not without her own terms. We paired it with holistic protocols and healing practices. She was determined not just to fight, but to live out loud — intentionally, consciously and with grace.
On the day of her first chemotherapy session, she noticed something that stuck with her. Everyone else in the waiting room was decades older. The “chemo pods” didn’t feel like they were made for someone like her. She searched social media for others her age facing the same diagnosis, hoping for solidarity, but there was no awareness ribbon in her color. No digital community. It was isolating, but instead of shrinking, Madison made a choice.
She chose not just survival, but purpose.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Maddy Baloy with Tay and Taylor Lautner during her appearance on “The Squeeze” podcast.
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She became a light for others, sharing her story openly and vulnerably with a fierce charisma that drew people in. She reminded the world that joy can exist even in the darkest places and that courage doesn’t always roar — sometimes it whispers through exhaustion and still rises the next morning.
Madison didn’t spend her last months dying; she spent them living. loving more deeply, laughing more freely and showing thousands of others what it means to be truly alive.
She chose to start living, and her #LiveLikeMaddy movement flourished online.
Thousands began to follow Madison as she opened her life to the world in the most transparent way, documenting not just the pain of her diagnosis, but the joy, the absurdity and the everyday beauty of a life suddenly seen through a sharper lens. She invited people in, not to mourn with her, but to live alongside her. With quiet strength and magnetic charm, Madison reminded her audience that every day is a gift, not in cliché, but in truth.
During her interview with Tay and Taylor Lautner on The Squeeze podcast, she offered a powerful perspective: “We are all terminal.” It wasn’t a plea for sympathy; it was a rallying cry for presence, for purpose, for living fully while we can.
Her message struck a chord around the world. Strangers became supporters, then friends. A global community rose up around her, cheering her on, lifting her spirit and helping her check off the items on a bucket list that was as humble as it was meaningful. One of the most unforgettable moments was her heartfelt wish to meet Gordon Ramsay, a chef she adored not just for his food, but for his passion too.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Gordon Ramsay and Maddy Baloy.
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The irony of her diagnosis wasn’t lost on me: stomach cancer for a young woman who saw food as an art form, a joy, a ritual. But in true Madison fashion, she turned even that cruel twist into something beautiful, and thanks to her extraordinary online community, her dream to meet the celebrity chef came true.
She shared a magical moment in the kitchen at his restaurant Lucky Cat in Miami. She danced, laughed and cooked with Gordon Ramsay himself. It felt like a scene written just for her. But while there was undeniable joy in that surreal experience, a quiet sorrow lingered beneath it all. Because I knew, with every smile and every embrace, that this dream was only possible because my daughter was dying.
One of the most painful yet beautiful conversations I had with her happened during our last hospital stay. “Mama,” she said softly, “You’ve lived for everyone else — Dad, my brother, me. But you’re going to need your own happiness, especially when I’m no longer here.”
At the time, I wasn’t ready to hear it. I hadn’t fully accepted that we were in palliative care and that we were approaching the end. But Madison knew. As always, she saw the bigger picture before I could bring myself to look.
What started as a brief hospital stay quickly turned into weeks. Her condition continued to decline, and no amount of medication could keep the pain at bay. The nurses — many of whom had become emotionally invested in our story — did everything they could, but relief was fleeting.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Carissa Talmage and Maddy Baloy.
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Still, inside that sterile hospital room, Madison and I lived out what became our final girls’ trip: a strange, sacred chapter that was filled with laughter when it could break through. There was an indescribable love that somehow softened the sharpest edges of a beautiful nightmare.
She was in so much pain. Most nights, she couldn’t sleep, her body unable to rest under the weight of the ascites swelling her abdomen. She would lean forward onto the hospital bed, and I would stand behind her, rubbing her aching back for hours. Any time she managed to close her eyes, I would rest too, tethered to her in every way.
Eventually, Madison bonded with two of the night nurses. By then, she stopped waking me when the pain became too much. Instead, she’d wait until morning and send a nursing aide to bring me coffee with lots of cream and lots of sugar. That was Maddy — still thinking of others, even in her darkest hours.
As her condition worsened, she began physically holding up her stomach, desperate to relieve the pressure. One afternoon, through tears, she asked me to wrap my arms around her and hold it for her, just so she could “relax.” I did. Then I found a way to position myself behind her in bed, cradling her abdomen so she could finally lie back and rest. It was our version of comfort.
The next day, she underwent a scheduled paracentesis that removed 13.8 pounds of fluid from her abdomen. The relief was immediate, but heartbreakingly brief: just one night. Still, in that window of respite, Maddy savored the simple joys that had once defined her life: a warm bowl of KFC mashed potatoes with gravy, a Diet Dr Pepper and — for the first time in weeks — a proper shower. For a fleeting moment, it felt like we were turning a corner.
Courtesy of Carissa Talmage
Maddy Baloy and Carissa Talmage.
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By Friday, however, her condition had deteriorated so drastically that the only compassionate option left was hospice.
In the wake of her passing, I was immobilized by grief. Days blurred together as I lay in bed, not knowing how to move without her. I knew she wouldn’t want that for me and neither would my husband or son. So I began to claw my way back to the surface.
I found a grief counselor who helped me make sense of the chaos in my heart. Then, slowly, I started creating life where there had only been loss.
My husband built raised garden beds on our land. I planted them with care, coaxing life from the soil, lush produce and bright blossoms that fed both body and spirit. We also created resiliently vibrant wildflowers, zinnias, and nurtured ten thriving beehives. Our natural and golden honey is named in honor of our fearless girl: The Delaney Bee Company, which pays homage to Maddy’s middle name.
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Even as I found joy in cultivating life again, Madison never left me. She is the undercurrent in everything I do. Her voice is in the breeze that whispers through the wildflowers, her spirit in the hum of the bees. She is the sun warming my skin as I plant and harvest.
As I continued to reflect on our last month together — in those times when it was just the two of us — I realized I still had one more dream to chase. I returned to college to pursue a lifelong calling: to become a nurse or enter the Applied Health Science field. I’ve always been a caregiver, a fierce advocate. I stood guard by my daughter’s bedside and demanded dignity, compassion, and excellence from those who treated her. Now, I want to bring that same devotion to others.
It hasn’t been easy. The grief never fully goes away. But in her name and through her love, I am learning to live again. Not despite the loss — but because of it.
Because our job is only love.
Read the original article on People
