RISING EMBER FOUNDATION
WOMEN WHO INSPIRE SERIES
Monica Aguilar Hicks
Turning Loss Into Purpose, and Learning to Fully Live Again
“I’m most proud of helping turn personal loss into meaningful action.”
— Monica Aguilar Hicks
WHEN STRENGTH LOOKS DIFFERENT
When we asked Monica Aguilar Hicks what part of her journey she is most proud of, her answer wasn't about an accomplishment, a title, or even the nonprofit she helped build.
It was about what she was able to create from one of the most painful experiences of her life.
That loss was her husband, Leo.
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In July 2017, Monica and Leo learned that he had acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer. A stem-cell or bone-marrow transplant offered hope, and Leo eventually received a stem-cell transplant.​
But fourteen months after his diagnosis, Monica lost her husband.​
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“Losing my husband, Leo, changed nearly every part of my life. Learning to navigate life without him felt impossible.”
There are seasons of life when strength doesn't look anything like we imagine it will.
For Monica, it wasn't about being fearless or somehow knowing everything would be okay. Some days, strength was simply doing the next thing in front of her.
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“In my darkest hours it looked like getting up, caring for my children, taking a shower and getting through the next second, minute, or hour.”
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Her children became her greatest reason to keep going.
And when moving forward felt impossible, Monica learned to make it smaller. One foot in front of the other. One moment followed by the next.
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“Courage is moving forward while still carrying grief and uncertainty with you.”
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Somewhere within that grief, Monica also made a choice about how she wanted to live the life still in front of her.
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“I knew the only way to not only survive but to thrive was to live in a state of gratitude.”
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That gratitude didn't make losing Leo less painful, nor did it mean leaving him or their life together behind.
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It simply gave Monica something else to hold alongside the grief.
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And there was something else she was carrying too...
Carrying Leo's Hope Forward
During his battle with leukemia, Leo had wanted to use his experience to help others. After receiving his transplant, he hoped that when he beat AML, he could pay that gift forward by sharing his story and encouraging others to join the bone-marrow donor registry.
He never had the opportunity to fulfill that hope himself.
Monica never forgot it.
She knew that somehow, someday, she wanted to carry it forward for him.
“Because of that I was able to turn the most devastating time in my life into something beautiful that brings hope to others when they need it most.”
A few years later, purpose found Monica in a place she probably never expected: a pickleball court.
Through pickleball, Monica met Mitra Sushinsky. They became playing partners, then business partners, and in 2022 they founded Dink For Cause, a nonprofit that brings people together through pickleball while raising funds and awareness for charitable causes.
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What started with a shared love of a sport became something much more.
For Monica, it also became a way to carry forward something Leo had hoped to do himself.
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Today, Dink For Cause supports a variety of community causes, while its connection to NMDP, formerly known as Be The Match, remains deeply personal. NMDP helps connect patients with life-saving blood stem cell and marrow donors, giving people facing blood cancers and other serious blood disorders the possibility of a potentially life-saving transplant.
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In June 2026, Dink For Cause held its fifth annual tournament benefiting NMDP in loving memory of Leo.
And for Monica, this work isn't measured only by tournaments held or dollars raised.
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It's measured in people.
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“Through my work with NMDP and Dink For Cause, I’ve helped raise funds, grow the donor registry, support local families, and bring communities together. Knowing those efforts have contributed to actual donor matches is something I will always carry with me.”
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A donor match can sound like a number or statistic until you remember what is on the other side of it.
A person.
A spouse. A parent. A child.
A family hoping for another birthday, another holiday, another ordinary morning together.
​More time...
Monica understands how precious that time can be.
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“Being able to turn the most painful chapter of our family’s life into work that helps others and brings them hope has been such a beautiful gift to us.”
Making a Difference, One Person at a Time
What we love about Monica's story is that her idea of making a difference isn't limited to the work she does through Dink For Cause.
For her, impact begins with simply paying attention.
“It means noticing what is needed and being willing to step in.”
Sometimes that means raising money or organizing an event. But often, Monica says, it can be much simpler.
“It means connecting people, creating opportunities, or helping someone feel seen and supported."
One of the pieces of wisdom that has grounded her is:
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
For Monica, those words aren't about believing one person has to change everything.
They're almost the opposite.
“We don’t have to wait until we have more time, influence, or resources to make a difference. We can begin with what we have, where we are, and help one person at a time.”
Learning to Exhale Again
There is another part of Monica's story that stayed with us.
After everything she has experienced, she is still discovering what strength looks like.
For a long time, strength meant surviving. It meant getting out of bed, caring for her children, and continuing forward even while carrying grief with her.
Today, she is allowing strength to mean something softer too.
“I’m also learning that strength isn’t only about pushing through. Sometimes it is about allowing yourself to exhale and fully live again.”
There is something so beautifully human about that.
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Because after spending so much time learning how to survive something you never imagined having to survive, allowing yourself to truly live again can require its own kind of courage.
Living again doesn't mean forgetting Leo.
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Moving forward doesn't erase the life they shared. Joy doesn't diminish grief, and creating a beautiful life doesn't diminish the love that came before it.
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There is room for all of it.
When we asked Monica which Rising Ember value spoke most deeply to her, she chose resilience, but she couldn't leave connection far behind.
“Resilience speaks most deeply to me, but connection is a very close second. Resilience helped me survive difficult seasons, while connection reminded me that I never had to carry them completely alone.”
Those words feel especially close to what we believe at Rising Ember.
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None of us moves through life entirely on our own.
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Sometimes we are the woman who needs someone beside us.
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Sometimes we are the woman who reaches out her hand to someone else.
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And sometimes, without ever planning for it, the experiences that changed us become the very experiences that teach us how to show up for another person.
A Message to the Woman in a Difficult Season
Before we finished, we asked Monica what she would say to a woman who might be in the middle of her own difficult season right now.
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Her answer felt too important to shorten:
“You are stronger than you feel right now. You do not have to have everything figured out, and moving forward doesn’t mean leaving behind the people or experiences that shaped you. Take the next small step, accept help when it is offered, and trust that this season will not be your entire story.”
Maybe that is what stays with us most about Monica.
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Her story isn't inspiring because she experienced tremendous loss and emerged untouched by it.
She didn't.
It changed her.
But she found a way to carry the love, the grief, the gratitude, and everything they taught her forward.
Leo once hoped to use his own experience to help give others a chance.
Monica found her own way to continue that hope.
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And today, through Dink For Cause, through the communities she brings together, and through the people she encourages to step forward and help someone else, that love continues to create ripples far beyond her own family.
Sometimes making an impact doesn't begin with setting out to change the world.
Sometimes it begins with loving someone, losing them, and deciding that what they meant to you can still become something meaningful in the lives of others.