I heard the words said by some to my Grandmother years ago after my Dad died an agonizing, painful death from pancreatic cancer... "no parent should ever have to bury their child". I recall how tragic those words struck me at the time, and the additional sorrow I felt for her in that moment, but it was soon lost as I and my sisters, and Nancy and Ashley struggled with our own pain over losing this giant of a man with his giant, loving heart. How little I knew of the kind of grief my dear Grandma Grace endured, but know all too well now.
{Much of what follows is taken from my words during Ashley's memorial service... so if you attended that, you'll recognize some of the words below...}
As I said during her memorial service, for all who knew Ashley, you know the very last thing she would want is for this to be a saddened time, focusing solely on how this loss irreparably changed our lives… but would instead be looking to us to remember the smiles, the laughter, and the joys we shared together with her in each of our own ways. While each day since receiving that horrific phone call which no parent should ever have to receive a year ago today has been a struggle to see past the rain and the dark clouds of our grief, I know our Heavenly Father understands the intensity of our pain and our tears, and although Ashley is no longer physically here to comfort us as we all know she would seek to do, I know we best honor the life of our daughter by focusing on those smiles and all of that laughter and the blessed joys we were each fortunate to share with her.
For Nancy and I, we celebrate September 24th, 1984... when God brought Ashley Elizabeth into our arms.
We celebrate the true gift from God we had as a daughter in Ashley. While others around us shared stories of problems with their kids and drugs or alcohol or other inappropriate behavior, we were blessed with a little girl who was recognized by her teachers as one who could benefit from additional scholastic challenge, and she was placed in advanced courses at an early age, she became a ballerina, and an athlete. She went on to be a perpetual Honor Roll member and earned a full scholarship to Northern Arizona University. The Lord seemed to have blessed us mightily with this delightful, precocious, blueberry-blue-eyed, beautiful little girl.
We celebrate the sense of strength, independence and self-worth Ashley developed as she grew. If you knew Ashley well, you knew that once she set her mind to something, there wasn’t a “Plan B”. While I may hold some natural bias as a father, I believe I can say with a clear conscience and utmost confidence that as a career Human Resources professional, I have rarely found others with the strength and discipline with which our daughter approached her school, her basketball & volleyball years, her work, her volunteering with the church, her marriage, and her being a mother. When she committed, she was all in.
We celebrate the joy Ashley found in the man she found who would later ask for my blessing to marry her. In today’s culture where the commitment and sanctity of marriage seem somehow so easily cast aside by roughly half of our nation, Ashley knew she wanted a good man to start a family with… and stay with. She knew what she was blessed with in the Lord’s blessing of true love in their relationship, as did we all. Nancy and I have often discussed how perfectly God put she & Stephen together, and how evident their love was. And we are so grateful to the man we have come over the past many years to call our son (rather than son-in-law), Stephen, for the joy he brought to our little girl’s life.
We celebrate the beautiful little boy our Heavenly Father graced Ashley & Stephen with. They partnered to raise an incredibly bright, respectful, loving, and gentle-spirited young man who is such a joyful reminder every time we look at him of this wonderful blend of the very best of his Mommy and his Daddy. Sure... there are those days when I see his Mom's eyes and he will give me a look reminiscent of one Ashley used to and the tears flow, but Thank You, oh God, for this little boy. Thank you for holding him safely in Your hand that awful afternoon a year ago today when the carelessness of another driver killed our daughter sitting only two feet in front of her young son.
We celebrate the joyfulness and the spirit of Christ which Ashley simply came to exude. We celebrate her hunger for the Word of God and how to apply it and understand how to use it in living His will for her life. I can’t think of much else to make parents as proud as Ashley has made us in seeing her truly become His hands and His feet as she lived her life and worked to serve or help others. Her influence even on our grandson, ensuring that he knew at the tender age of 5 that “yes, Jesus loves me” are more than just words to a Sunday School song, but are rather a statement of spiritual fact, just as Grandma Grace did for my cousins and I decades before.
Psalm 23, verse 4: “Yea, though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” As the psalmist observed, even death’s great shadow (under which we all walk while on this sin-filled earth, in varying degrees of darkness until Jesus returns to establish His kingdom here on Earth) cannot rob of us the presence of our Savior. We celebrate because there is never any need for fear. While death’s shadow has darkened our days since April 29th, 2019, we can know that the great Shepherd is always near his sheep and He has never forsaken a single one. He is with us now... gathering each of these tears cascading down in His hands... and He will be with us until we each walk out of the valley’s shadow, into the warming and glorious light of the Son, and we are reunited with Ashley once more in that Promised Land of no more tears, no more fears, no more pain, and no more saying goodbye.
This world is not as bright without you in it, my darling daughter. Know how very much your Mom and I miss you, and how much we long to hold you in our arms again. Know that I'm maybe a little jealous that you are enjoying being in the presence of our Savior and of your Grandpa and of so many other loved ones before I got there. Know that we are each doing our level-best to honor your wishes and be the very best we possibly can be to assist your wonderful husband in raising your son. Most of all, know that we will see you again soon.
