KAYSVILLE—Everyone needs to give themselves and others a little grace. Courage is grace under pressure. It takes a lot of courage to have it. That’s how Jan Williams looks at life having gone through four bouts with cancer. Williams is the founder of the Hopebox Theatre that helps those battling cancer. She shared her story at the Davis Chamber Women in Business luncheon recently at Roosters with the theme of “Grit & Grace.”

“You have to give grace to yourself or you can’t give it to others,” said Williams. “I wear my heart and soul on my sleeve. You have to be vulnerable.”

Grace is a verb, she said. “You’ve got to get past the assumptions and judgments or appearance and not do that first. Your story isn’t just what you see. It’s not where you work, what your business is or your family.”

Williams was the second child of six siblings. “I would say, ‘hey I’m over here.’ I had to earn my place. I found I liked to sing and dance. I didn’t have any training but my family said ‘that’s great, you should keep doing it.’”

She met her future husband in the seventh grade. “I was running for student body officer and so was he,” Williams said. “I lost and coming home after I thought ‘how can the biggest nerd win?’ I didn’t know he’d become so hot.”

While attending Weber State University, Williams was part of the WSU singers. “I felt like such a newbie,” she said. “I decided ‘why not try it’ so I kept going. I’d always had a love of musical theater so I went and did it and I was completely hooked.”

Williams said she married the nerdy guy and they moved to California. “I was voted by my family as the one who would never leave home. I was the only one that left and I was gone for 12 years.”

At 28 years old, Williams got cancer. “I was six months pregnant with my son,” she said. “When someone patted me on the back it hurt and they found I had Stage 3 melanoma on my back. They wondered what to do when you have a baby inside and I needed treatment. When I gave birth he had all of his fingers and toes – he was fine.”

Williams said she felt super blessed. “I thought it was just a little bump. But when my boys were 2 and 5 the cancer returned. I was at the top of my game, really fit and high on life and myself. I had chemo and surgery – it was harsh.”

It hit so hard that my mom had to take care of me, “I couldn’t take care of my sons,” she said. “I had to go home. It was hard.”

Williams was told she wouldn’t be able to have anymore kids. “That was a shock,” she said. “We were just about ready to start trying for a third. I wanted a girl, it was a hard blow.”

When they moved back to Utah, Williams said she decided to do what she loved to do. “I wanted to start a singing and dancing group. It was in the garage and I had eight girls that grew to 25 then to 300 kids. They were called the Show Stoppers. That was my first big business.”

Things were going so well, she said. “Then in 2017 on New Year’s Eve I bent over in excruciating pain. I told my husband, ‘I think I’m dying, get me to the hospital.’ An ovary had burst. It was about the size of a grapefruit. I had Stage 3 ovarian cancer.”

Williams said she didn’t want to hear it after two times. “I knew what I was headed into. I had to shut the doors of my school. I couldn’t teach. Chemo does a number on you. You lose your hair, nose hair, eyebrows. I was bald from head to toe.”

She was at a low point then an amazing thing happened, said Williams. “Someone decided to give me grace. My students showed up at my home and sang on my doorstep. I was filled with hope. Something reignited in me and Hopebox was born.”

In 2019, Williams was with a group of theater kids at Disneyland when she started having problems. “I had to have one of the instructors drive me home,” she said. “I couldn’t move. I had a feeling and had a colonoscopy. I knew when the nurse came in I looked at my husband and said ‘I’ve got cancer.’ I had Stage 3 colon cancer. I had it when I had ovarian cancer but didn’t know it.”

The tough times didn’t end there. “My oldest became a major drug addict,” said Williams. “That’s a really hard part of my story. While I was battling colon cancer and fighting for my life and my son’s life the love of my life had an affair on me. That’s what destroyed me.”

Williams said she would take four times of cancer over that every day of the week. “I’m still married to my husband. I’m still working on my marriage. That’s been the biggest challenge of my life.”

The more grateful someone is, the more grace steps in, she said. “Grace is giving kindness to ourselves and to others even when it’s hard. You can’t purchase grace, it is a gift. No matter how long you live, that's the one thing everyone needs. You can’t give away what you don’t have.”