In this spoken testimony, Elizabeth shares the story of her goddaughter Brianna—from her premature birth and bright, joyful personality, through her teenage years marked by COVID‑related setbacks, financial strain, and a lifeguard job, to the tragic car accident that claimed Brianna's life. Elizabeth recounts the moments leading up to the disappearance, the frantic search, and the devastating identification of Brianna's body, expressing profound grief and self‑blame for not noticing warning signs. She then declares a mission to prevent similar losses by empowering young girls, urging listeners to pay attention to their struggles and join a global movement. The testimony is followed by supportive remarks from Speakers B and C, who commend Elizabeth’s emotional authenticity, the importance of her message, and her ability to channel grief into advocacy.
Chapters
Hello, all you beautiful, amazing humans. I'm Elizabeth. I want to start off by saying I'm so honored to be here, and I want to wish my mom and my daughter, who turned 7 today, a happy birthday. I love you. You inspire me and motivate me every day to keep going. How many of you know an amazing, beautiful, smart, bright young lady who has the whole world ahead of her? Yeah, that was my goddaughter Brianna. I remember seeing her for the first time when she was 3 weeks old, full of life. This tiny, tiny little preemie, just adorable, big, big eyes. And I just knew she was destined for greatness. Every event that she had, I was always there with her mom. We were like this, inseparable. And, uh, I got to watch her grow and blossom, and she was just so full of life. She would smile so much that it would make you sick. Be like, girl, why are you smiling right now? But it just, it just always lit something up inside of me. When she turned 19, COVID was happening. She graduated. She was a straight-A student, did amazing, didn't get to go to prom, which was very devastating for her. As we know, young girls like to be social. So as soon as things started to lift, she had moved in with us because there was a water park nearby, and she was having some issues with her then-stepdad. So we encouraged her to to go and get a job as a lifeguard, and she did, and she made a lot of friends, and she started to shop a lot. At this time, I had left corporate because I had experienced severe burnout and started my business and went on that path. I was really busy. I got really caught up, and I wasn't really paying attention. And Brianna was always my number one cheerleader and encouraging me and motivating me. And one day she came to me in tears And she's like, Nina, I have something I need to talk to you about. What's going on, Brianna? Take a seat. She says, you know, I'm in a lot of debt. I got myself in an immense amount of debt and I don't know what to do. And I'm like, what's in a lot of debt? She says, $5,000. I sat there, I'm like, really? That's it? So after that, she, uh, She then started to work 3 jobs. And this one weekend, I was gone because it was another goddaughter's birthday that I had, and it was in LA. And so on our drive back, I have my eyes closed and I'm meditating, and out of nowhere, something hits me so hard that I open my eyes and I scream and I just start crying. And my husband says, "What's wrong?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I have no idea." We get home. When we arrive, Brianna's not there. Her car's gone. So I asked my son, hey, have you seen Brianna? And he says, no, Mom, I think she went to her mom's. So I'm like, oh, okay. So we're sitting there, and the next day she's still not there. I text her, nothing. Her mom ends up coming over. We're trying to find her and we can't. And we sit there, and Brianna's not the kind of kid to not come home. She just wasn't. She was always up underneath us, and so we end up calling 911. When the cops show up, we're sitting there and we're kind of waiting, and I know something's wrong. Prior to that, I had actually sent a text message to her saying, Brianna, please let us know you're alive if you are. If that wasn't a tell in itself, in that moment, the police officer sits outside goes to the car, comes back, is out there 3 hours, and when they finally come up, they have the phone on speaker and they say, we have the morgue on the phone and we believe that we have your daughter and we need you to come identify her body. That is every parent's nightmare.
Brianna had been in a car accident. She had fallen asleep hit the wheel and died instantly. And when we went to go identify her body, she looked like she was sleeping. And I'll never forget that because I just wanted her to wake up. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to say I was sorry. Sorry for ignoring her. Sorry for not paying attention to how much pain she was in. And I vowed then that I would never let that happen to another young girl if I could help it. So it has been my mission to find my voice— thank you, Eric— so that I can help make this a global movement, help these young girls rise, and make sure that we're all paying attention. Because this idea of being too much and not enough at the same time, and the pressure that is placed on young girls everywhere, is so immense that it becomes unbearable. And if we don't pay attention to them, we will lose them. All it takes is one of us paying attention to the signs. So please, rise with me and help these young girls rise and create a ripple effect that changes the trajectory of humanity.
I love you. Thank you.
You get to that level where it's like, are you about to lose everything there? You're gonna just cry and you just can lose yourself there, but you managed to hold it on the line and get it throughout that talk until then. This was amazing, really powerful.
Your message is so important and so powerful, and I can't wait to see you do this on bigger stages.
Thank you.
Nolan talks about the, you know, the way of skirting the line of emotions. We talked about the line of emotional control, and what you've shown here is mastery of being able to get to that place where you're able to associate to the feeling, you're able to let it grab you but not run away with you, and that shows the depth of the authenticity authenticity of the experience you've had, which allows us to have that experience. And it will allow you to really motivate people to think differently and behave differently and make things better.
