3 Months

91 Days~13 Weeks~3 Months

At exactly 3pm-3 Months Ago, Our Sweet Beautiful Ashley Left This World For Her Eternal Life. Our World Was Forever Changed. A Once Happy Whole Family Is Now Incomplete, Forever Broken. Ashley Meant The World To Me, Mike, Michael & Jake And To So Many More. Ashley Is Unlike Any Human Being I Have Ever Known. At Her Service, Father Even Said, “She Lived A Life Very Much Like Jesus Did”.

Ashley, As The Quote Below Says, Our Heart Is Still One, A Link That Can Never Be Undone. But Our Shared Laughter & Smiles, Life Long Friendship, Hugs & Kisses Was Taken Away From Us. This Is A Pain No One, Will Ever Understand, Unless Your Daughter, The Precious Baby You Carried For 9 Months, Bonded With Her While In Your Belly, Anxiously Awaited Her Arrival, Took Care Of Her For The Entire Time She Was Here With You, Became The Best Of Friends, Is Taken From You.

Ashley was Lucy to My Ethel, Rory to My Lauren, Meredith to My Christina, My Person. The One, Who When Things Went Wrong, I Danced It Out With. She Was My Partner In Crime. She Was My Soulmate. (Not all soulmates are romantic). She Was My Everything, My World.

My Children Are My World, My Everything, My Heart. Part Of My Heart Went With My Beautiful Ashley. I Am No Longer Whole.

The Pain I Endure Every Day, Without My Sweet Beautiful Ashley, Is So Intense. I Cannot Control It. There Is No On Or Off Switch. I Can't Just Say, "Ashley Is Gone, Time To Move On And Be The Person I Was Before." It Doesn't Work That Way. Not When Your Child Is Taken From You.

This Is My Life Now. Who I Once Was, Died When My Beautiful Ashley Left Us. Each Day Is A Challenge To Get Through. I Thank God For My Michael & Jake. They Are What Gets Me Through Each Day. They Are My World, My Everything As Well. I Thank God For Mike. We Are A Heart Broken Family. A Family Forever Changed. A Family Whose Daughter, Whose Sister, Was So Much A Part Of Each Of Our Lives And Is Now An Angel. Our Lives Will Never Be The Same Without Our Beautiful Ashley. NEVER.

ASHLEY FOREVER ~IN OUR HEARTS

You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine, You Make Me Happy When Skies Are Gray, You’ll Never Know Dear, How Much I Love You, PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY SUNSHINE AWAY~~~~

This World Took Away My Sunshine & Now My Skies Are Forever Gray

Daddy's Girl & Mommy's World

Day 90

Missing You So Much My Sweet Beautiful Ashley.

There Is No Cure

Day 89

My Heart Hurts So Very Much. I Miss My Beautiful Ashley More and More With Each Passing Day.

There Is No Cure For A Broken Heart From The Loss Of A Child.

Missing My Sweet Girl So Much

Day 88

Today was a really bad day.

I Just Miss My Sweet Beautiful Ashley So Much.

87 Days of Tears & Pain

Day 87

Ashley, Mike and I always watched Family Feud. She shared this with us a year ago.

Seeing memories with or from Ashley, are so painful. It's a Constant Reminder of the Fact That Our Beautiful, Amazing, Ashley is No Longer Here With Us.

Pictures and Memories of Our Beautiful Ashley, Create Many Emotions: Joy, Thankfulness, for the Times We Shared, Pride, for The Beautiful, Selfless Soul She Is. Many Happy Emotions. But at that same time, those Memories and Pictures Bring Much Pain and Suffering. They are a reminder that Ashley is No Longer Here With Us. A Constant Reflection of What Was and What Could Have Been, What Should Have Been, But No Longer Will Be.

87 Days of Tears and Pain and Yearning for My Sweet Beautiful Ashley. The Pain is not lessening, it is increasing.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/top-5-epic-buzzer-breakdowns-family-feud/85166281/

No Longer Who I Once Was

Day 86

Each Day I Fight Through The Hell I Am Forced To Face. A Hell that you cannot understand, unless you too have lost a child. But even then, we all face things differently. We all have different personalities, we have different relationships with our children. Just as no two people think exactly alike, no two people grieve alike.

Ashley isn’t just my daughter, she is my best friend, my Co-worker. So I am dealing with the loss of someone who was more than just My Daughter. The loss of a child is the greatest loss anyone can suffer. I know that because I have lost a Mother, a Father, A Step Father, Grandmother, Grandfather and even a Brother. Although I grieved with great pain and feel their loss, there is no greater loss, no greater pain, than that of losing your child, In My case, My Daughter, My Beautiful Ashley. Now add the fact that she knowingly risked her life for other’s and that just makes it even harder. Add the fact that she had the most amazing attitude about and never complained about her cancer and all that she had gone through and that makes it harder. Add to the fact that the inadequate care of an incompetent hospital is what ended up taking Ashley’s life and that makes it even harder. Add to the fact that Ashley was willing to endure whatever pain she had to, because she wanted to live that badly, and that makes it even harder. So as I said, each of our circumstances are different, each of our relationships are different, so each of us will grieve differently.

I was always a glass half full type of person. I always saw the positive side of everything. I appreciated and cherished everyone in my life, everything that I had. I never cared about  material things because I knew what was important in life. I was very happy to just live a simple life. As long as I had My Children, My Husband and My Family, Life Was Good. 

But Life is No Longer Good. I am no longer me. No longer the person that I was, before My Beautiful Ashley was taken from us, from me. My family has been torn apart. The reasons that I was the way I was, was because  the thing I wanted most in life, more than anything else, was my Children. My Children all happy, healthy and All Of Them Here With Me. People expect me to be the strong, positive person that I used to be. The person that I was before My Beautiful Ashley was taken from us, from me. Ashley Taught Us All Strength & Positivity. She taught us what was important in life. She showed us what it meant to be selfless and put others before ourselves. We lived our lives that way. We were not perfect, but we gave, expecting only to receive this beautiful life we had, in return. A life with love and happiness. The simple life. We gave & gave, only we didn’t receive that continued simple life, that happiness. Instead, the person who gave the most, My Sweet Beautiful Ashley, was rewarded with Her life being taken. We were rewarded with living in constant misery, for the rest of our lives Without that Beautiful Soul, Without Our Sweet Beautiful Ashley.

So that person many of you knew, she is gone, she is non-existent. She Left this world with Her Beautiful Ashley. She is now a shell, a robot, forced to exsist in a world without My Sweet Beautiful Ashley.

If Not For My Boy's,  I Would Lay Down & Die. Every Day Is A Torture That  Cannot Be Described.

Searching for Proof

Day 85

85 Days Without Our Beautiful Ashley.

I woke up as usual, with my heart aching and longing for My Sweet Beautiful Ashley & my gut hurting more than usual.

This World Does Feel Empty Without Our Beautiful Ashley. Ashley Completed Our Family. Now That She Is Gone, We Are No Longer Whole.

From the moment I woke up, my gut was hurting more than it usually does. It's been hurting every day since My Beautiful Ashley left us, but today it was different.

Mike and I had plans to go look at a new Acadia.  I agreed to get a new one, only if my car payment didn't change drastically. Well apparently, the Acadia I saw online, is a slightly smaller version than mine and much cheaper because of that. They apparently made 2 versions in 2017. I did not like it at all. So the salesman showed me the version like mine. I liked it, but I didn't like the price or the fact that he didn't want to give me crap for my vehicle. So basically, he wanted me to walk out of there with a car payment of over $600. Oh, he tried really hard to get me to take that car. He told me that mine is getting close to the warranty being up and when things go wrong on these computerized cars, it can get
 costly. But he doesn't know me.

So I told him a story:

Back in 97, Mike tried to get me to buy a new car. I found something wrong with every car we looked at. This went on for weeks. He was getting aggravated with me. One day he came home from work and I told him I found a car. He said, "Great, let's go look at it." So we drove a couple blocks down the road and pulled up behind a Mustard colored, 1979 Mercury Zephyr. Mike said, "You want that car?" I said, "It has low miles. He wants $200. I am going to offer him a $100. You just need to make sure it runs good." Mike said, "You are going to drive that ugly mustard colored car?" I said, "I will drive a car that looks like a banana down the road, If it gets me from point A to point B and I don't have a car payment." I paid $100 for the car, drove it for 2 years, then sold it for $75.

So I said, "I don't hate my current vehicle, in fact I like it more than the 2017, I am not paying over $600 a month for a vehicle." Said Thanks and we left.

Mike and I headed to Roadrunner Sports. While driving I had one of my many several, daily, bad crying moments. As the tears lessened, I realized the pain in my gut, lessened to its normal daily pain.  I don't know if it was me, subconsciously not wanting to get rid of my vehicle or Ashley trying to tell me not to.

When we got to Roadrunner, I told Mike to go ahead, that I would be in, in a minute. I was wiping the tears from my eyes. So I started talking to Ashley. I said, "Ash, I don't want to be in this world without you, it is so very painful, but this cruel world took you and left me no choice. So I beg you, please, always be with me, be my Guide, My Angel." I then walked in the store and looked for Mike. When I found him, the next song playing in the store was, "Can't Stop That Feeling." Ashley's favorite dance song. Mike and I looked at each other when we heard it and smiled. But at that time, Mike didn't know what I just said to Ashley in my vehicle.

I then called Jake to ask him something and he said, "By the way, yours and Dad's plates came.

Then when we were heading to dinner, a friend of Ashley's texted me to tell me he was in town. He then decided to call and we made plans to meet up before he heads back home.

Prior to going to look at the car, I reached out to another friend of Ashley's. A woman from Ryan's in Frankfort, called me the other day about baskets for the motorcycle event. She told me that when my Nephew dropped the flyers off at the bar, there was this nice young man sitting there and he looked at one of the flyers and told her that he knew Ashley and showed her a picture. So I reached out to him and asked if he was coming to the event. He said he was and it made me happy that he was coming.

I have been very skeptical about signs. Like the Cardinal. I mean, if we didn't live in the State of Illinois, where the Cardinal is the state bird, and we were in a state where it wasn't common to see a Cardinal, then yes, if I saw a Cardinal, I might be more convinced that it was Ashley.

So I'm trying to believe that these are signs from Ashley, but I'm just not convinced yet.

I'm still searching, hoping, looking for more concrete proof. Ashley being gone from this world, from our lives, Will never be OK, but some undeniable proof, that she is OK and that we will see her again, might bring a tiny bit of comfort.

Take The Time To Stop & Realize What Is Important In Life

84 Days ~ 12 Weeks

My Heart Aches Every Day. I Miss You So Much My Beautiful Ashley. More Each Day. That WILL NEVER Change.

Please take a few minutes to read a post I made 7 years ago. Not For Me, But For Ashley, For Her Sacrifice. For Every Other Precious Child That This Monster Took. For Every Child Currently Fighting Or Those Who Will Fight.

July14, 2010 Facebook Post

Today I went to Ashley’s caring bridge & read a message that was left from a mother of a little boy who had the same cancer as Ashley. When I read her message I... sat there for about ½ hour crying! This was her message:

“What an amazing young woman you are Ashley - no wonder your folks are so proud of you. We are also an ependy family but unfortunately not as successful as you have been in your battle .We lost our little Johnny after a 5 year fight with ependymoma - he turned 6 on 7/3 and passed away the next day. I will pray that you continue to stay ahead of the monster- I will keep checking in on you - stay strong - never give up. You'll do it for all those who couldn't. Love from Johnny Sileno's proud "Mima" Kathy 9cb/johnnysileno”

My Words:

We have been doing this for 9 years now and it never gets any easier when we hear the news of a child passing. But what it does do is motivate us even more to make our Foundation a success. It shows us that every barrier, every headache, every amount of stress and aggravation that we encounter or endure is so worth fighting for these children. I think the hardest part of running this foundation is the fact that it is so hard to get people involved, to get people to care enough to make a difference. I want to scream when I see the involvement and the funds that get raised for animals. I love my animals just like the next person, but come on, we are talking about children. I think it should be a given who is more important. I thought for sure that people with children would be so willing to volunteer merely because they are thankful that they have healthy children. But the volunteers are few and far between.

I guess we just get so busy with our own lives that we forget to stop and realize what life is really all about. We get so absorbed into the material world and hold those things as the most important part of our lives. We tend to take for granted everything that we have and how truly blessed we are for what we have. We lose the altruistic part of ourselves that God intended us to have. We get lost in our own little worlds!

We sit back and wonder why our world is going to hell and ask why God has turned his back on us, but he has not turned his back on us, it is us who have turned our back on him. We walk into our churches on Saturday and Sunday praising God, but we walk out and forget about every word we heard in church and what is important. We are hypocrites and we do not even see it!
We have lost our values and place the utmost value on things that have no value.
We realize what is important when it is too late and then we spend the rest of our lives living in regret and living in the past wishing we could have done things differently.
By no means am I sitting here and condemning you without including myself in this condemnation. I am just as guilty as the next person and that is why I refer to “WE” and not “YOU”. I too am part of the guilty!

None of us our perfect! We never will be! It is human to err! But I do try my best to be a good person and I do care about others. I feel so very blessed for all that God has given us that I want to show my thankfulness by trying to make a difference in the lives of these children who are fighting for their lives. They are our babies so how we cannot care is just incomprehensible to me.
For most of my life I have been searching for who I am and what I was meant to do in this life, always feeling like I did not belong where I was, wondering if I would ever find my place in this world. I will not lie, I have spent many of times feeling sorry for myself wondering why God choice to bring such hardships to my life, wondering what I had done wrong. Then wondering the same about my children’s lives, why they have had to endure such hardships, often wondering if they were paying for mistakes that I had made in my life. My experiences and hardships have shaped me into the person I am today! Through my experiences I have learned to love more & care more! I have built strength & determination! I have fallen many a times, but I always get up & keep going! Nothing ever holds me down for long, nothing ever stops me from continuing to reach my goals. I have learned to be compassionate and truly care about others agonies and feel them as if they are my own! All this time I thought God was punishing me and then today I had an Epiphany. God has not been punishing me, he has been preparing me! Preparing me to do what I was meant to do! I was meant to start this Foundation! I was meant to make a difference in the fight against childhood cancer and I was meant to be the bullheaded person I am today! If I were not that person, then I would have given up a long time ago!

So bring on the barriers because I am stronger and more determined than any barrier will ever be! Anyone or anything can stand in my way, but in the end, I will knock them or it down! I will not be defeated because God made me and he is standing by my side!

I am not and never will be a perfect person! I will make mistakes just like the rest of you, but I will care enough to try to be the best person I can be and try to make a difference in this world, try to make a difference for these children! So my question to you is: WILL YOU?

What The Future Was Supposed To Be

Day 83

Memories of what the future was supposed to bring.....

In My Daughter's Eyes.....

In my daughter's eyes,

I am a hero,

I am strong and wise,

And I know no fear,

But the truth is plain to see,

She was sent to rescue me,

I see who I want to be, 

In my daughter's eyes. (Ashley is My Hero, and She Rescued Me, But Who Is Going To Rescue Me Now?)

In my daughter's eyes,

Everyone is equal,

Darkness turns to light,

And the world is at peace,

This miracle God gave to me,

Gives me strength when I am weak, I find reason to believe,

In my daughter's eyes (Everyone Always Said How Strong I Was, Ashley Gave Me Strength, Now My Strength Is Gone)

And when she wraps her hand around my finger,

How it puts a smile in my heart,

Everything becomes a little clearer,

I realize what life is all about,

It's hanging on when your heart is had enough,

It's giving more when you feel like giving up,

I've seen the light,

It's in my daughter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes,

I can see the future,

A reflection of who I am and what will be,

And though she'll grow and someday leave,

Maybe raise a family,

When I'm gone I hope you'll see,

How happy she made me,

For I'll be there,

In my daughter's eyes (Ashley Some Day Leaving, wasn't Supposed to Be This Way and Ashley Certainly Wasn't Supposed To Go Before Me)

Memories Of What Was Supposed To BE......

https://youtu.be/HxPnAOMpbqA

This is a Facebook Memory From 2010

Ashley is the proud recipient of the Dominick’s Charitable Foundation Scholarship! This is her forth Scholarship. 1.) Most inspirational Senior 2.) Illinois She...riff’s Scholarship 3.)Lee Braford Scholarship and now this one! Still waiting to hear about the one from Kankakee County Crime Stoppers! I am so very PROUD of her! My Dad would have been especially proud of the Scholarship she received from the Illinois Sheriff’s. Dad served Chicago PD for 40 years, retired as a Captain!

I Felt Like I Had Died Too

Day 82

Leaving A Mother In This World, Without Her Precious Child, That She Carried for 9 Months, That She Nurtured, That She Loves With All Her Heart & Soul, Is The Cruelest Type Of Pain There Is. Cruelest Form Of Punishment. Not Just For Her, But For Her Other Children As Well.

A Loss This Great, The Greatest Loss Ever, Destroys Your Soul & Crushes Your Heart.

There Is No Cure, No Fixing It. You Don't Get Over It. The Pain Does Not Lessen. You Live Every Day Of Your Life As If Someone Is Twisting Your Gut, Stepping On Your Chest, Making It Hard To Breath.  You Feel As If You Might Loss Your Mind At Any Second Because You Keep Yearning For Something You Know You Can Never Have; Your Child Here With You. Your Childs Life Continuously Flashes Before Your Eyes, As If You Are In That Moment Again, For Just A Second. You Do Everything You Can To Keep Your Head Above Water. Trying To Prevent Yourself From Drowning In The Pain. You Wake Every Day Praying It Was All Just A Nightmare. You Cry Every Morning, Every Night & Multiple Times Throughout the Day. Nothing You Do, Nothing Anyone Says, Can Stop The Pain. Nothing Can Remove The Thoughts That Constantly Go Through Your Head About The What If’s.

You Are FOREVER CHANGED. A World That Once Was Full Of Beautiful Colors, Is Now Gray. Smiles Are No Longer Real. When You Smile You Can Feel Your Lips Shaking, Trying To Go Back To The Frown That Is A Permanent Fixture On Your Face. Your Tears Are Endless & The Flow Is Heavy.

You Are No Longer You. You Are Someone You Have Never Known Before, Someone You Never Wanted To Be. You Look In The Mirror & You No Longer Recognize The Reflection Starring Back At You. It Is A Stranger You Are Looking At.

You Count The Days Since The Last Time That You Saw Your Beautiful Child, Touched Their Beautiful Face, Heard Their Voice, Hugged & Kissed Them. You Pray Day & Night That There Really Is An After Life & That You Will See Your Child Again. But The Doubts That You Have Eat You Up, Thinking That You Never Will See Your Child Again.

It Is Hell, Torture, You Are In A Constant State Of Misery.

I Can’t Speak For All Mothers Who Have Lost A Child, But This Is My Life. My Beautiful Ashley Is No Longer Here With Me. Instead of Walking To Her Bedroom To Say Good Morning. Instead of Doing Various Things To Spend Quality Time With Her, Making Memories With Her. Instead Of Sitting Across From Her, Having Converations & Laughing With Her. Instead Of Kissing Her Good Night, Telling Her “Love You, See You In The Morning.” I Get To Go To The Cemetery Every Day, Sit In Front Of Her Monument, Talk To Her, Read To Her & Sit There Trying To Absorb The Reality That My Beautiful Ashley Is No Longer Here With Me & Wonder If I Will Ever See Her Again. I Leave There Wishing There Were A Way To Go Back In Time.

This Is My New Life. This Is My Boys Life. My Husbands Life. We Are Forever Changed.

Sometimes, Although Not Intentional, The Words People Say, Make The Pain Worse.

Some Things Never To Say To A Mother Or Father Who Has Lost A Child

You Need To Move On ~ Not Possible To Move On From The Loss Of A Child~ At Least Not For Me. Ashley Was Part Of My Everything. I Live For My Children. It Is Who I Am. They Mean More To Me Than Life Itself. They Are Your Child & There Is No Moving Forward From This…. You Now Just Dwell In A World Like A Robot.

God Needed Another Angel ~ Easy To Say When It Wasn’t Your Child That He Took.

At Least They Are No Longer In Pain (Or Anything That Begins With At Least) ~ My Ashley Was Willing To Endure Whatever Pain She Needed To Live, Because She Wanted So Badly To Live. (So That Doesn’t Help, In Fact It Makes The Pain Worse)

You Will See Them Again ~ Will We Really See Our Children Again?  Think About Whether Or Not That Would Bring You Comfort If You Had To Spend The Rest Of Your Life, Be it 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40+ Years Without Your Child Here With You.

Your Child Wouldn’t Want You To Be Sad ~ No Matter What Your Child Would Want, You Can’t Just Flip A Switch & Shut Off Your Pain. Not Possible.

There Are More, But I Am Too Tired To Think…….

Indescribable Pain

Day 81

An Indescribable Pain, That Increases With Each Passing Day.

Day 80

Day 80

If You Were Here

79 Days

If you were here, it would be better than Okay. Life would be Perfect once again.

Many people may have looked at our lives and thought it was not perfect. Maybe to some it wasn't, but to Me it was. Perfect doesn't mean that you have everything you want or everything always goes your way. Perfect is accepting your life is what it is and you make the best of it. But The Most Important Reason My Life Was Perfect Before, Was Because My Beautiful Ashley Was Still Here With Us and I Have My Beautiful Michael and Jake.

That Perfect Life Is No More and Never Will Be Again.

Wishing Someone Would Wake Me Up

78 Days of Wishing Someone would wake me from this Nightmare.

I Miss My Beautiful Ashley So Much. Each Day More Than The Last. My Heart Hurts So Much. My Pain Is Never Ending.