Having a strong support system at home helps many people succeed in their work.
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For Matthew Stafford, the quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, his wife Kelly is the foundation of his life. The two met while attending the University of Georgia. She was a cheerleader, he was a football star, and the rest is history!
“I believe God placed us at the University of Georgia,” Kelly wrote on Instagram. “You could have gone anywhere to school and yet you picked there … and it was a reach for me to get in, but by some miracle, I did. He wanted us to meet and see where it took us.”
They were married in 2015, and Kelly has never been shy about sharing her feelings about the love of her life. “I truly have the best partner in life,” she wrote in 2017. “For those of you who know him personally, [you] know what such an amazing man he is .. but I am the only one lucky enough to know what an incredible husband he is.”
That same year, the couple welcomed their twin daughters, Sawyer and Chandler, into the world. Both Matthew and Kelly fell head over heels in love with their girls. Their two other daughters, Hunter and Tyler, were born in 2018 and 2020.
Their lives together may seem like a fairy tale, but they’ve been through some tough times as well. For starters, Kelly was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2019. Thankfully, it turned out to be benign, but she still needed brain surgery to remove it. Matthew was right there by her side, and Kelly called him her “rock” during a scary time. Meanwhile, Matthew never missed an opportunity to brag about how his wife handled the traumatic ordeal with her usual grace under fire.
“It was a crazy process, but she attacked it like she always does and now look at her,”he said. He went on to explain that their daughters will always be able to look back at this time with admiration and pride.
“There’s going to be times in their lives that things aren’t going to be easy and they’re going to be tough,” Matthew said. “To be able to look really close to them, look at their mom and go, ‘Look what she did, look what she was able to overcome.’ It’s something that I know will be valuable in their life.”
The strength of their bond was tested once more in 2020, when Matthew broke bones in his back during a game against Oakland. Kelly was dealing with pregnancy sickness and all three of their daughters were sick with the flu and pneumonia. Through it all, they stuck together and helped one another heal with patience and love!
“The past 15 months have really taken a toll on me and my family,” Kelly wrote, adding that Matthew’s back was fortunately “completely healed.”
“Next month will mark a year from my brain surgery,” she said. “It is a year that has helped my family grow in numbers and in strength, but it is a year that I never want to revisit.”
The Stafford family has even more to celebrate these days. In February 2022, Matthew led the Rams to victory and secured a spot at the Super Bowl! As soon as the game was over, Kelly was one of the first people on the field to celebrate with her husband and best friend.
A video of her leaping into his arms for a huge hug has gone viral, and for Kelly, the moment felt like the culmination of a dozen years of joy and sorrow.
“It was kind of an embrace for the past 12 years of our life,” she said. “We’ve had four kids, a brain tumor, a broken back, so many things. I feel like we just exhaled and really took in that moment. Being like ‘this is what you’ve worked so hard for. This is what we came for.’ Really, it was just all of those emotions just letting them all out.”
No matter which team wins the Super Bowl, Matthew’s sweet relationship with Kelly has truly won our hearts.
Watch Kelly and Matthew celebrating their victory in the video below, and don’t forget to share this incredible story of love and determination.
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