Darren Mullen is a firefighter and works with courageous and brave people every day. But the most powerful display of bravery he’s ever seen came from his wife, Debra, in her battle against breast cancer.

“The fight I saw in her, and the courage, I never would have imagined she had it in her,” Darren says. “The strength she had to fight for her own life and for our daughter was incredible. I’ve never met anyone as brave as my wife.”

Debra was determined to beat the disease and to be there for her little girl and her husband. She knew what it was like to grow up without a mom – her own mother died of breast cancer when Debra was only 7 years old.

On September 11, 2001, Darren learned that his wife had the same kind of cancer that had taken her mother, and like so many others across America that day, Debra began the biggest challenge of her life. Over the course of two years she had both breasts removed and received chemotherapy and radiation in her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, and at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The cancer continued to spread, however, and Debra died on August 31, 2003.

Many people define being a survivor as beating whatever struggle they face. Debra may have lost her battle with cancer, but Darren says she most definitely is a survivor. And though she is gone, Darren believes Debra continues to influence him and others by the way she lived her life. “I have come to learn from Debra that being a survivor is not so much about the outcome, but more so the way in which the battle is fought,” he says.

Debra’s drive not to give up led her to embrace the opportunity to enroll in three different clinical trials. “Debra told me on more than one occasion that even if the trial drugs did not work for her, that maybe they will help other women and moms like her in the future,” Darren says. “She always added, ‘That young mom may be my daughter.’”

Indeed, 6-year-old Rebecca has a 50-50 chance of developing the same breast cancer in her early 30s that killed her mother and grandmother. So in Debra’s memory and for Rebecca’s future, Darren will ride as a member of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope™ Team to share his wife’s inspiring story and her commitment to cancer research.

The day after Debra’s funeral, Darren went out and bought his very first road bike. The energies and thoughts he spent fighting for his wife were channeled into his bike, and just seven weeks later he completed the 100-mile Lance Armstrong Foundation Ride for the Roses in Austin, Texas.

“Only through research will the cures someday be found,” he says. “And my hope, my wish, my prayer is that if the time comes that my daughter has to face this disease, the cure will be there for her.