An understated force of nature, Maureen (Reenie / Mo) Kelly Hummel’s love of life didn’t come to an end with her death. She passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones on October 24, 2023 at 2:22pm at the age of 42, after a truly remarkable 1,765 day battle with cancer. Her loved ones will honor her by living their lives to the fullest, exactly as she did.

She was born on November 13, 1980 in State College, PA and lived in Hershey, PA, Little Rock, AR, Dallas, TX, Cincinnati, OH, and Baltimore, MD. Mo never met a problem she couldn’t solve. She was whip smart, attending Southside High School in Batesville, AR, and University of Arkansas Little Rock, where she ran track and graduated in 2004 with a degree in Kinesiology and a minor in Education.

An exceptional athlete who loved sports her whole life, Mo, or “Wheels,” as her coach called her, was an all-star baseball pitcher (she insisted on playing with the boys). In both high school and college, Mo was a track star and was given the nickname “Iron Woman” by the Batesville Daily Guard for her prowess in the sport.

She married her love, Kerrie Byrne, on July 15, 2017 in Big Sur, CA amongst the redwoods where she always found deep solace. To see Mo and Kerrie’s life together, both before and after her cancer diagnosis, was to bear witness to true love and devotion.

Mo was loved and respected by those she had the privilege of leading. She touched the hearts of so many and had a meaningful impact on everyone around her by bringing joy and light to every interaction. She was compassionate, empathetic, and created a powerful community of people who trusted and confided in her. She held her responsibility as a leader with the utmost care while leading teams at both FedEx and Amazon.

As Senior Manager of Business Strategy for the Community Operations team at Amazon, Mo was a logistics and people wizard. She was an advocate in the workplace, committed to making it a more equitable and just place for all. She was a champion for LGBTQIA+ visibility in the workplace, providing a safe space for queer folks to share their stories and increase awareness of issues impacting the community. Above all else, Mo served as a grounding force and encouraged everyone to be their authentic self in the workplace and beyond.

A true warrior, she was born determined, and often joked that she had a Viking spirit. That resolve served her well after her stage 3B ovarian cancer diagnosis in early 2019. Mo and Kerrie were determined, but nothing could prepare them for the greuling, heartbreaking, life-affirming journey that lay ahead. Their unwavering love was expressed daily and no truer vows have ever been upheld, they loved each other in sickness and in health. They decided to fight to live and love as many days as possible.

Mo lived longer than any reasonable expectation. Her journey with cancer included 12 rounds of chemo, 2 major surgeries, 9 months of immunotherapy and oral chemo, 7 months of maintenance drugs, 33 rounds of proton therapy, a Meso CAR-T cell therapy clinical trial, and various treatments across the US and Mexico. She was an active participant in the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition (NOCC) to help fund research for a cure. Until the very end, Mo had an indomitable will to live.

Mo was effortlessly cool and always had impossibly amazing hair styles. Her life was a testament to love. Her love was steady, generous, and truly unending. She was quick to laugh and even quicker to forgive. She saw the humanity in every person she met, and even people who only met her once felt the kind strength and lightness of her spirit. She inspired so many and was often a pillar of strength for those who had none. If you were lucky enough to be in her life, you always felt her steady presence and benefitted from accumulated wisdom beyond her years. She was just one of those people everyone felt comfortable resting into.

All this sounds too good to be true, but she really was that strong, that radiant, that kind.

She is survived by her wife, Kerrie Byrne, stepson, Kaleb Duenas, mom, Donna Hummel, brother, Mark Hummel, sister-in-law, Abi Knaub, brother-in-law, Kent Byrne, goddaughter, Quinn Evans-Gendron, her chosen family and friends she met throughout her life and her beloved dogs, Loki and Fritzie, who were her constant companions.

Just prior to surgery, Mo shared the following, we’ll let hers be the final words: “I am finally in a place where I do not fear what is to come…As I looked up at the towering trees I realized how small I am in flesh, but when I closed my eyes and hugged those trees I was a big as they were, my energy soared to the top of the world. The trees told me, you are a seed that is ever growing. Trust in Grace to show you your path. My heart is full of love today.”

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