It’s 11pm on a school {work} night. I am sure my husband, the BF, will be grumpy that I am not in bed. But the truth is, I am having a “Memory Moment” and I just can’t sleep. Or stop my tears. I have been meaning to write this post for the last few months and have never made myself sit down to actually do it. There has always been an easy excuse. But tonight, I ran out of excuses.

A few years ago (I am pretty sure it is about 4.5-ish), I took a group of my sorority girls to a leadership conference. At the last-minute, we had some attendee shuffling for one reason or another and another officer jumped at the chance to go. I had known Ashly since she had joined our chapter, but only really started to see her more often as an officer this Spring semester. I remember thinking that she drove me absolutely crazy! Everything she knew she had learned recently on Pinterest, she always had a new opinion and she wasn’t scared to share it with you. I also learned on this trip that she and her twin had lost their parents when they were young.

As a mother, that has been my absolute most paralysing fear, leaving my children. I got home from that trip and cried to my husband that I couldn’t even imagine how her mother had felt having to leave those girls. Then and there I told God that if he needed me to help, that I would. That I would do anything he needed because I would want someone to do that for my children. I had seen Jill do amazing things for the children of her best friend she lost, and I prayed that if I was ever in that situation, that God would give my children many people to love them.

The BF and I decided that we would invite these two young women into our family. It took Ashly a little while to believe me that there wasn’t a catch. That we didn’t want anything from her, but we simply wanted to give them the chance to be a part of something. Our boys loved them immediately. Ashly jumped at every chance she could get to spend weekends at our family lake house, come for dinner {and boy how she loved food!}, come do laundry … all the normal college kid requests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She came for Christmas. She did “accessories” {Stockings … shhh}, she helped the boys do reindeer food on the lawn, she ate the cookies after the boys went to bed, she promptly ate a snack right after eating the cookies, and she opened gifts and wore her new matching pj’s. She went on family vacations. She called in the middle of the night because her tire went flat during a break and no college kids were there to help. She called to ask about a pimple and why it was there. She called to ask permission to come visit and wash her jeans {which meant she would bring every single item of clothing she had thrown on her floor for the past three weeks, along with rugs, towels and anything that could fit in the washer}. She would come for dinner or lunch … and eat it all, then request to take home the leftovers. She asked to get special chocolate dipped strawberries from the frozen section at the grocery store.

 

I won’t forget the time she finally put items in the shopping cart without asking. School clothes shopping had been a chore the first time I took her, only coming back with a few pair of jeans. All the times after that, we hauled in bags of things that she couldn’t wait to show to Jason and the boys {they pretended to be excited, too}. She became a part of our family over the days, weeks, months and years. With each phone call about the newest college issue – boys, makeup, a broken hair dryer – she became more and more ok with us just being there for her.

She was a daily fixture. When people would ask who she was, we simply replied that she was our extra child. I am sure people often stood looking at her, doing the math of these early 30’s people with a 20 something child, and wondering what piece of juicy gossip they were missing. It was often our joke.

Then, just days away from her college graduation, Ashly died.

Bam. Our world imploded.

I learned that grief is your own. I had always been told that people grieve in their own way, and logically I knew that. But what I came to understand was that everyone is entitled to their grief, no matter what their importance was in that person’s life. I had always been the “Well, they aren’t family, why are they upset” person. I didn’t fully get it. Now I understand that no matter what the significance of that person was to someone else, that doesn’t take away what they were to you. Just because someone else loves them, doesn’t mean you can’t love and miss them just as fiercely.

And I miss her. I miss the inside jokes, the text messages, the photos of the haircuts she got on a whim but wasn’t sure she liked. I miss the boy problems. I miss having our boys remind me to make extra ribs or brisket because Ashly may want to come eat with us. I miss her Every. Single. Day.

 

It ripped my heart out when our 10-year old said, “I just miss Ash. I wish she were here like always to spend the night” on the drive home Christmas Eve to prep for Santa.

So, I have “Memory Moments” where I remember how much of a blessing she was. How she smiled and her funny sneeze. I listen to the voice mail she left me trying to figure out what shirt to purchase for her senior photos. I read her text messages and smile. I smile because I know she loved us, too. I know we made as much of a difference in her life as she made in ours.

I am blessed that her mamma and God sent her for us to love.
I am blessed to learn these lessons early in life so I can spend more time being thankful each minute with my two boys, even when they are both driving me crazy.
I am blessed to have gotten to teach the boys how to love others unconditionally and that family isn’t defined by blood.