Eighteen

Sweet Ash its your 18th birthday today. I mean it would have been your 18th. Could have been your 18th. If only things had gone differently. 10 years out from the last birthday we celebrated together and I still don't have the answers, the understanding, or the ability to make it all make sense in my head. Or my heart. I try so hard to imagine who you would be today. What would you look like. How much would you have grown. What would you have learned, mastered or accomplished by now. I just can't see any of that. What I do see though is your beauty. I remember it. Your breathtaking beauty that to this day causes me to pause as I stare at the photos of you. Oh sweet girl you were so beautiful. Not just your outward beauty but your soul that shined through your eyes and caused us all to catch our breath in your presence. God created you with such a spirit inside of you that it spilled out all over us. I so desperately miss seeing the very essence of who you were through your eyes. Today was a mix of hard and beautiful. Tears were shed. Hearts ached. Arms longed for you. Dad and I pushed ourselves again this year to make sure we honored your life to the best of our ability. On a day that we could so easily hide from the world and privately remember you we chose to open the door and step into what we felt God leading us to do. The emotions we feel as we plan and prepare for your birthday each year are so tough to feel. Sometimes I wish that I could numb my heart from the hurt, but still I am determined to celebrate your life. Regardless of the emotional cost... I share you. I share your life. I share your story. You were ours but I learned early on in your life that you weren't just ours. Your life was meant for something bigger. From the moment we chose to share you with the world I watched as your story began to change it. Hearts were touched. Lives were changed. Eternity became real. Your story led others to His story. What a legacy. Such a tiny girl that God used in so many lives. I'm so blessed to have been your mom. I'm so proud of who you were. I'm so grateful. Undeserving of you, but humbled to have been allowed to love you and take care of you. I'll never get over it. Happy Birthday Ashley Kate. You are so loved my girl. So very loved by us all. I miss you kid and look forward to the day that I will see you again. Until then... Forever loved... forever missed...forever eight.

Would have been 17 today

 Dear Ash,

I sit here alone with my memories of you .

Some happy and some sad.

Some good and some bad.

Some bring joy and others bring sorrow.

Still some comfort me and others seem to torment me.

Through them all I remain grateful.  Grateful because...

I got to love you.

I got to hold you.

I got to sing to you. 

I got to kiss you.

I played with you and took care of you.

I fell on my knees and I prayed for you.

I pleaded to God for you.

I begged Him to move for you.

I cried out for deliverance for you.  For mercy for you. For healing for you. 

He did move Ash.  He did.  He did deliver you. He did.  He did heal you. He did.  He showed mercy... Not how I wanted Him to... but I now know that He did. 

And now He is the one who holds you instead of me.  He now protects you where I failed to be able to.

He made you new.  You are whole.  You are healed.

And I am grateful. 

Today would have been your birthday.  Your 17th. I still find it hard to imagine how the years have continued to pass without you here with us.  Its now been 9 birthdays that you have spent away from us and in the presence of Jesus.  How has that happened? I fail to understand how our lives have continued since the moment yours ended.  

We spent the day remembering you.   

Dad and I looked through hundreds of photographs and watched countless videos of you.  We smiled...and...we cried.  I feel as though I've spent the entire day with tears washing over my face. Tears since I woke.  Tears as we took gifts to the hospital in your memory today.  Tears as I sat across the table from your dad at lunch and listened to him try and imagine what a 17 year old Ashley would be like.  We both agreed that you would be beautiful...and opinionated.  That last part made us laugh through the tears.  I'm sure at 17 you would still be frustrated by our attempts to figure out your requests.  Oh how I would have loved to have your 17 year old self here to be upset with me! I shed more tears as we took birthday flowers to the place where you now rest.  I have such a hard time knowing that the only thing I have left of being your mom is taking flowers to your resting place.  Its the last piece of "taking" care of you that I have.  So that is what I do.  I take flowers to you and place pink and white ribbons at your memorial.  I go there and try  to make such a place beautiful for you (as though a place in a cemetery could actually be beautiful).  

We spent the day celebrating you.  Spilling kindness on others through random acts throughout the day.  We ended the day walking hand in hand talking about you.  Remembering how incredibly blessed we were for the years that God gave you to us.  Ash, you were so very loved.  Still you are so very loved.    

You are missed again today. Just like you are every day since you left. 

Our beautiful, beautiful eight year old Ashley.  Happy "17th" Birthday sweet girl. 

Your Daddy loves you, Blake loves you, Allie loves you and your mom loves you. Today and forever.

Forever loved...forever missed...forever eight

Sweet Sixteen

 Its August 4th, 2021 and we are now in the final hours of what would have been your 16th birthday. I'm staring at the clock on the wall just as I've been staring at the date on my calendar for the last few weeks knowing that this day was coming and knowing again that you would not be here with us to celebrate it.

 Time is a tricky thing.  I fail to understand how a date on the calendar can reduce me into a trembling mess of emotions and yet it does.  It always does. So I sit here crying.  Again,  I'm crying.  Because even though it seems as though I just laid my eyes on you for the first time I haven't really seen you, or touched you, or heard your laughter, or smelled your hair in so very long.  How does that work?  I cant explain it. I just miss you. So very much. I miss everything about you.  I miss everything that the last 8 years since you left could have been.  I don't even know what those days were going to hold, but I miss the possibilites of them just the same. 

Ashley Kate, who would you be at 16?  How tall would you have grown? How beautiful would your mature face be? Your hair? I'm sure it would still be long, and dark, and oh so sweet smelling. Would you have found your voice by now? I wonder what it could have sounded like if only it hadn't been stolen away from you.  Daddy and I talked about that just today.  Your voice... we barely had a chance to hear you use it. Your eyes spoke the loudest to us all.  You said so very much with those twinkly eyes of yours.  Your hands, the signs and gestures you personalized...how much more could you have said to us over the last 8 years? I lay awake just wondering, imagining, and wishing you hadn't gone.  Still I know in the deepest parts of my heart that you were only meant to be here for such a little while.  Your purpose had been determined long before you became mine.  God knew from the beginning. He had a plan for your life.  I didn't know or understand it, but I do believe that you did what you were called to do.  You lived your 8 years fulfilling that design and when it was completed He took you back unto Himself.  As much as it hurt to watch you leave, and still hurts that you are gone, I find peace in that knowledge.  In the beliefs that I hold, for if I didn't believe these things I would not have survived losing you. 

If you had been here today to celebrate I know we would have gone on a drive.  A really long one.  Just to watch you smile in our rearview mirror as the trees passed by outside your window.  I would have rolled your window down so your could have felt the wind blowing in your hair.  We would have hit those rumble strips to hear the laughter spill out of you. I'm sure daddy would have driven circles in a parking lot for you as you begged him to "swing" the car.  Oh how you loved to be in the car!  I know you wouldn't have been able to drive like most 16 year old girls on their birthdays, but I also know you wouldn't have even know you were "supposed" to.  I loved that about you.  Loved that you just loved your life with no concern for what it wasn't or what you couldn't do.  So precious it was to see the world through your eyes sweet Ash!  You were a gift to us all.  The gift of our lifetimes.  

Happy Birthday my beautiful girl.  You are so very loved today.  You are so very missed by all of us.  Forever you will remain just 8 years old.  16 was never in His plan.  I'm learning... still learning to lean into that truth.  He is in control of all of our days and He holds onto you now that we no longer can.  I love you sweet girl, Mom.

Forever loved...forever missed...forever eight.  

15

You would have been 15 today.  I can't.  Seriously, I can't wrap my mind around the thought of what today could have been...should have been? 

There was so much more I wanted...more photos...more memories...more laughs...more moments...more days...more years...more time.  I wanted you to live.  I wanted you to never leave.  I wanted you to survive.  I wanted to keep you home with us for a lifetime.  A much longer lifetime than your short 8 years.  

I'd like to think I've learned so much since your last birthday and yet I feel as though I haven't learned a thing. I long to see you.  Long to hold you.  Long to keep you.  Still, I know that He alone is sovereign.  I am not.  He alone held your future in His hands.  I did not.  He knew the number of your days here and I had no idea what that number was going to be.  He gave to you each and every breath you breathed including those you desperately struggled for in your last moments.  I was helpless to give you another or to ease the struggle you were fighting.  My heart is comforted and yet shattered by those truths.  He loved you.  He did.  So much more than I can even fathom, and its because I KNOW that to be true that I must convince myself that His plan was right.  It was best.  It was for you. Not to harm you for another moment but to ease your suffering and your pain.  It was merciful. It was loving.  It was what He chose for you.  I wan't to kick and scream and fight for you to still be here, but what could I give to you that would ever compare to what He has done for you? I can't even imagine all that you see, and do, and know now.  

I take comfort in knowing that your pain is no more.  I couldn't take the suffering from you, but He could and He did.  As much as my heart still bears the scars of that suffering I am grateful that He loved you enough to end it. 

So on this day that we should have celebrated your 15th year, I instead celebrate that you are whole. You are in His presence.   No more tears.  No more pain.  No more scars. No more fear.  No more my precious girl.  You will never know those things again.  If I could have given you anything on this day it would have been this. I love you sweet Ash.  Love you even more today as the calendar keeps changing from year to year.  Never have I ever stopped.  You were the most beautiful gift.  The gift of a lifetime. Nothing will ever compare to the treasure we had while we had you.  

Happy Birthday Ashley Kate, your mom loves you kid.  

14 Today

Sweet Ash today would have been your day.  Your 14th birthday had you been allowed to stay.  How very fitting that the moment I opened my eyes this morning I could hear the rain falling outside my window and with tears rolling down my cheeks I smiled.  Smiled because you loved the rain.  You loved the feel of it on your tongue... your skin...your clothes.  You would sit outside and let the drops drench you without a worry in the world.  It never mattered to you that you were getting wet.  You simply loved the way it felt.  I considered the rain this morning to be a gift.  A gift for your birthday.

You've now spent 6 of your birthdays away from our home.  I'd like to imagine you were celebrated and surrounded by souls who loved you today, but I know better than that.  My belief in Heaven and the little I think I know about it does not support those thoughts.  Still I know that you felt loved.  I believe you spent your day in the presence of God and He loves you.  I know with everything inside of me that He does.  So you were loved today.  I guess I'm just selfishly hoping that you felt our love today too.  Silly I know, but its so very hard as your mom to not wish that you still felt loved by all of us here too.  You are still loved Ashley Kate.  Every moment of your life and every moment since your eternal life began you have been loved by all of us. 

I've stopped trying to imagine you at these ages you never lived to be.  I've settled inside my heart, along with your daddy, that we will always see you and know you as the eight year old beauty that you were.  We will always see you as the little girl we knew and loved and nurtured to the very best of our ability.  How I wish we had been given more than those 8 years with you, but we didn't get to decide how long you would live.  That decision was made by the One who created you.  I didn't get to have a say.  Still how very blessed am I that I got to be the one you knew as your mom.  I'll forever be grateful for that.  I didn't deserve you, but I was given you to love and be loved by for a while. 

We spent today celebrating you.  Your life and what we learned from you.  We spread joy and kindness and happiness to those we came into contact with.  We gave gifts in your memory to friends and strangers whom our paths crossed with today.  We cried and struggled our way through today too.  The longing to spend our days with you, especially your birthday, has not gone away.  I know that it never will.  I'm ok with the tears.  Its part of who I have become since you've left.  There is a hole inside of me that aches.  A silence in my world that screams inside of me now that your laughter is no longer heard to fill it.  I missed you today.  I missed kissing your cheeks the very moment you woke.  I missed singing happy birthday to you in those early morning hours and watching the smile of recognition spread from your eyes to your lips. I missed hearing your tiny voice cheer in celebration as you woke and realized it was a special day.  I just simply missed you on what would have been your 14th birthday. 

My prayer is that the Father whispered into your ear this morning (since I could not) that "Mommy loves Ashley, and Daddy loves Ashley, and Blake loves Ashley, and Allie loves Ashley, and Jesus loves Ashley." That is what I truly asked Him to do today.  Tell you that we loved you.  Just as I ask Him every single day since you left for Heaven. I sincerely hope that you knew how very loved you were and still are. 

Happy 14th Birthday my beautiful girl.  I can only imagine all that your eyes beheld on this day.  I know you felt joy like I have never known simply because you were in His presence.  We love you Ash.  Today and forever.     You will be forever loved...forever missed...forever eight.

We missed you this Christmas

We missed you this Christmas.
Your smile
The twinkle in your eyes


We missed you this Christmas
The fun of watching you cheer for each gift unwrapped
The excitement on your face

We missed you this Christmas
Your stocking hung
Daddy’s lap left empty

We missed you this Christmas
Gifts weren’t bought
A family photo can no longer be taken

We missed you this Christmas
Precious gift lost
Wish we had more time

We missed you this Christmas
It’s been 6 now without you
So hard to believe

We missed you this Christmas
It’s just not the same
Your joy is missing


Forever missing you Ashley Kate
Forever loving you and
Forever remembering you as eight

Merry Christmas sweet girl

How can it be 5 years already...

I wish I knew.

It seems like just yesterday she left us, and yet seems like a lifetime ago all at the same time.  We haven't seen her...

 or held her...

 or kissed her...

 or touched her...

 in 5 long years. 

How do you survive the death of your child? How do you wake up the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year?  I have no idea.  Honestly, I don't.  You feel as though you won't survive.  Your not even sure you want to survive, and yet somehow you keep breathing.  Even though breathing hurts, you keep doing it.  I'm 5 years into this grief journey that began the day our precious Ash stopped breathing and I am still searching.  Scratching and clawing my way through it.  Determined to make her life count.  Determined to not allow her to be forgotten.  Determined to speak her name daily so that she does not disappear from this world.  Determined to use what she taught me about living to make my time here matter.  Determined to hang on to my faith even on the days when I feel as though its gone.

The loss of Ashley Kate broke my heart.  It truly did.  It broke me in a way that cannot be healed outside the gates of  Heaven.

I'm still learning how to live with the burden of grief.  Its not an easy lesson to learn.  It doesn't come naturally.  I read somewhere along the way that grief is just love that no longer has any place to go.  I'm not sure how I feel about that statement, but sometimes it makes sense to me. 

5 years past her last morning with us I can tell you this one thing...I miss her.  I miss everything about her.  I still do.  I imagine I always will. She was the most precious thing I ever held.  She was beautiful.  She was happy.  She was so full of JOY. 

Ashley Kate, you are so loved.  My sweet girl I miss you more than words could ever convey.  How I wish we had been given more time with you.  You lived the life you were given more beautifully than any other person I've ever met.  You never once worried about your tomorrows.  You taught me more about God and His Power than anything.  I learned to trust His character even when I felt that what He was doing in our lives was unfair.  I'm still learning to lean on Him as I grieve for you my precious girl.  I love you.  I miss you.  Oh how I long to see you again. Until that day I'll keep clinging to my faith in Jesus.  You are forever loved...forever missed...forever eight.