Since her first marriage at 18, Kat Garza has called herself an “old soul.” Upon meeting her, you learn she’s anything but. After all she’s been through, you see her as a woman who embodies the word survivor, and emanates nothing but a youthful state of mind.
Growing up learning the ideologies of two parents born and raised in Southern America, Garza was taught the ins and outs of what she believed to be womanhood: cooking, cleaning, and having a house full of kids. As prepared as she was for that lifestyle, nothing could prepare her for the physical and mental abuse she believed she had to endure when getting married at 18, then again at 38.
“My failed marriages were such toxic relationships that I never felt any good about myself. They made me out to be an insecure, anxious person,” Garza explained.
Said anxieties have made her struggle with getting older, as if she let the years pass her by before she got to where she is today: an accomplished blogger, model, and world-traveler. When asked what she’d tell her younger-self, she just said she would hug her and tell her not to be so afraid.
“I don’t struggle with aging anymore… we can’t control the clock of our lives, it fosters fear,” she said.
Many of us can learn a thing or two from that outlook on life. However, Garza learned to snap out of her old ways of thinking precisely at age 44, when she learned she had a brain tumor.
“My head was shaved and all of my hair was gone. I also had over 40 staples in my head. But, I was alive and that is all that mattered, of course,” she states in her blog, Jezebel and Gigolo, recounting her experience after surgery.
The bigger shock, other than the removed tumor being the size of a man’s fist, was that she was pregnant. Days before surgery she was worried she’d lose her life, and days after she learned she had the chance to put a new one into the world. Despite multiple doctors advising her to terminate the pregnancy because of post-surgery complications, medications, and her late age, Garza knew she wanted the baby. Even if a part of her thought the pregnancy would probably terminate by itself, after all she’d been through.
That baby’s name is Caroline, and she’s 23 years old today. To Kat, Caroline is a living breathing reminder that there’s life after brain tumor surgery. There’s life after a toxic marriage. There’s nothing but life left if you’re still breathing.
With six daughters and one son, Kat believed she was done with relationships other than the ones she built with her children. Enter Bob: the Gigolo to her Jezebel (read her blog to get this one) that sought to change her mind on commitment and marriage, at 64 years old.
“I was afraid to get married again, but he called me. I ignored him. He was persistent and I finally answered his calls and said I’d try again. I’m so glad that I did,” Kat says.
Marrying Bob gifted her with a newfound sense of confidence, as Garza began to learn the difference between the words “husband” and “partner”. Sure, she’s had two husbands in her life already, but Bob has taught her the meaning of being a partner: he encourages her to believe in herself and in fact, Garza explains she owes her current four-year modeling career to him. She was always conflicted over how she felt about her body, and the whole premise of modeling scared her until Bob recommended she book a boudoir shoot. When she asked him why he’d want her to do such a thing, his answer was simple.
“He said ‘this isn’t for me, it’s for you. You need to see yourself as I see you, sexy, confident and beautiful.’ And he was right. When I saw the pictures, I cried,” Kat said.
Nowadays, you can find her rocking her grays as she models for Wilhelmina Models, one of the World’s leading modeling and talent agencies. And at the risk of sounding cliche, Kat says with absolute certainty that Bob is her best friend, her soulmate. Which I believe isn’t a cliche at all, if you’ve lived the life she has. It’s almost as if a happy ending was owed to her.
We define the word “survivor” as being a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died. For Kat Garza, she’s a survivor because it took losing her old self to become the person she is today: a confident, secure, and free woman who seizes each day as if it will be her last.
“If stress ages you, I should look 120 years old I guess. But I’m just a survivor, one that keeps pushing through,” Garza says.
Article Written by Anesa Feratovic
