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Retreat Reflections: Hope in St. Louis

Joe Jantke was served on the St. Louis Legacy Retreat® in July 2025. He shares how the life-changing experience impacted his family.

Cancer doesn’t take a day off–frankly, it doesn’t take a second off. It works hard to steal, harm, kill, and more. Thus, the mind of a cancer patient has no respite. You may think being N.E.D. (no evidence of disease) or “cured” means that the mind is at rest. Nope.
You fear it’s coming back. New pain? Recurrence. Headache? Recurrence. Each scan, blood test, and procedure–recurrence. You get the picture, cancer is always there somewhere in our minds, ready to appear at any time.
So the thought of a retreat or weekend away giving me a break from cancer, I was skeptical. And spoiler alert–it didn’t do that (but we’ll get to that below).

Some Background

The mission of Inheritance of Hope is to “inspire hope in young families facing the loss of a parent.” They are not solely dedicated to cancer but rather terminal illnesses of all kinds. No words can fully describe the organization better than they can, so click on the link above to learn more. Here I’m going to tell you about our weekend with them on their Legacy Retreat® in St. Louis.

Note: I am purposefully being somewhat vague as I feel that anyone reading this who might qualify for this retreat, should not have it spoiled for them. There is much more that made this weekend amazing, but again, this is high-level so as not to spoil it for future attendees.

Friday

St. Louis arch
We drove down on Friday morning. The drive was the only thing we had to cover financially–everything else was covered while we were there. Arriving at the hotel, you’re immediately blown away. The Union Station hotel, aptly named as it was a train station, is massive and beautiful.
Arched ceiling with detailed green patterns and clock
A large room with a detailed arch ceiling

The photos above are the main lobby area where a light show is projected onto the ceiling every hour–a different light show, too. After being blown away, we received itineraries, our welcome bag, then shown to our room. The welcome bag consisted of gifts for the family, a book by Kristen Milligan, the co-founder of Inheritance of Hope, our shirts and nametags for the weekend, and more. We also met our two volunteers that would be with us all weekend–and I mean all weekend. They were amazing!

After getting settled in, we had our first session of the weekend. The adults went into their own sessions and the kids did as well, split up by ages. Adult and kid alike, most people are a little apprehensive and maybe nervous or shy at the thought of sitting and talking to strangers in a circle for two hours. Needless to say, that fades away fast for every single family member. Introductions, stories, and more made two hours seem like ten. Before we knew it, it was time for the welcome dinner and party. Great food, a DJ, a Kendra Scott jewelry bar (they were a sponsor for the event), balloon artist, face painters and more were all at this dinner. Dancing and running around was a sign that the night was going great.

Saturday

Saturday picked up where we left off the night before; great breakfast and then we went into more breakout sessions. More great conversations, and we heard from a group of younger volunteers whose families went on a Legacy Retreat® years before and felt compelled to return and help other families. This might have been one of the best conversations and toughest. They shared about their lost parent and how the weekend really served them all. There weren’t many dry eyes around the room and to be honest, it is something I think about a lot: how will my kids remember it all?

In addition to the fun I’ll describe below, there were also professional photographers around snapping candid shots and posed photos. After lunch, we had about 4 hours to explore the rest of the hotel complex with our volunteers. You might think that 4 hours for a hotel exploration is a lot, but it’s not any old hotel. If you’ve ever been to Navy Pier in Chicago, it is most similar to that. There is an aquarium, an indoor ropes course, restaurants, a ferris wheel, and more. Everyone had a blast, even though it felt like 100 degrees outside.

"Group of people in yellow Inheritance of Hope shirts looking at a starry display indoors.
A father and son enjoying an aquarium

Creating memories at the St. Louis aquarium. 

At night, we had Parents’ Night Out and Kids’ Night Out. The kids and volunteers headed to Dave and Busters while the parents went to dinner. It was nice and relaxing, and we even had an hour to relax before the kids came back.

A girl using a claw machine at an arcade
Two boys playing arcade basketball

Kids Night Out

Sunday

The last day of our retreat. We had another session where we all broke out to wrap the weekend with our breakout groups and to say goodbye. Then after our groups ended, we all met back up with our families and volunteers. Again, I won’t get into too much detail because if you get the chance to experience this life-changing retreat, you should. But I’ll say no one wanted to leave, tears were all around the room, and it was really bittersweet.

I will say that the entire organization was amazing and so generous. Their goal was to alleviate the stress and burden of a terminal illness and honestly, aside from my physical limitations, they did just that. Our volunteers Dawn and Zach were perfect, amazing and more than we could ever ask for. It’s hard to say something is life-changing and actually live up to it–but the retreat did and more. I can’t thank Inheritance of Hope enough for the perfect weekend.

-Joe

A large group of families and volunteers wearing yellow Inheritance of Hope t-shirts pose for a photo
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