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?
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?
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