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As for Leisha, her passion runs deep in many areas of her life. For one, her own business, Her Heartbeat, is blossoming. It gives her the opportunity to utilize her many years of experience in social work and connect with women on a personal level. Like her ability to share her knowledge on heart disease with a local barista, Leisha also knows that she’s capable of helping women get through a divorce or realize new healthy lifestyle changes, and not just on the physical level. She tells them about what she’s doing and aims to counsel “the total heart” — spiritual, emotional and physical. “When I woke up on life support the first time, my whole life changed,” Leisha said. As a single mother to Chloe, 16, Ethan, 13, and Isabel, 10, Leisha admitted she was terrified to die when she had her first heart attack. When your doctor tells you, “You’re not supposed to be here,” but in reality you are living — you have no other choice but to live. And that’s exactly what Leisha has done. “What I realized is that I truly believe when I wake up in the morning it’s a gift,” Leisha said. “I never know when my last breath is going to be.” She waited a few days to talk to her kids about what open-heart surgery could mean. “We talked about things honestly,” Leisha said. “How many parents actually get to do that?” At that point, her kids weren’t scared anymore. However, now, she tells her kids that heart disease is a blessing. It opened her heart to the journey ahead of her. “I was living on life support until I woke up on life support,” Leisha said. “Now. I have passion, direction and emission.” When people ask her, “How do you do it all?” She told me, “You understand it. You have this fire inside you too.” Love In Your Heart What captures the love in Leisha’s heart? “My children, absolutely.” When Leisha told family and friends she would be getting a divorce about 10 years ago, she was pregnant with Isabel. While she struggled at first, she realized this was her chance to show her three children how loved they were and always would be. “We make mistakes as moms, and I try to be a real mom,” she said. “I’m not always right and I tell them that.” We learn and
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january 2013 :: syracuseWomanMag.com