I am the kind of person that likes quotes. Kind of addicted to them actually. Anna Cummins wrote:
"Do not save your loving speeches
for your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead."
I don't think that Ashley's time is coming anywhere in the near future. That totally wasn't supposed to sound morbid. I just want to make this my "Tribute to Ashley" post. Isn't she pretty?
Ashley and I go back. Way back. Oh the awkward days of middle school. Well, we survived them. She better than me (sometimes I feel like I'm still living them). Then came Camp Bridges. She asked me to be a youth conselor at a camp that her sister was putting together. Up the mountain we went to the beautiful Heaton Ranch. We didn't really know each other very well. Pretty crazy that she asked me, possibly crazier that I said yes. Crazy isn't actually the best word. I am convinced that it was the hand of God. We've talked about how those few days changed everything. We came off that mountain connected and have stayed that way ever since.
"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
We have had a lot of those moments together. EFY, plastic gloves (more like EFY with plasic gloves), matching hoodies, dances, carnivals, cherry fresh limes, haunted houses, zombie movies, egg fights, food fights, water fights, fist fights, bonfires, long boarding...etc.etc.etc. The best of those stupid moments usually involved late nights, ice cream and laughing. A lot of laughing.
I'm glad that we have shared so many happy memories. The kind that make me smile and laugh out loud when I think about them. We have also shared some dark days together. No, we never really fought (at least that I can remember...Ash, did you ever secretly hate me?). I'm talking about the dark days that we carried and comforted each other. As I've been thinking back I feel like she had to do a lot more consoling than I ever did. Together we survived: mean boys, stupid boys, and clueless boys. Mean girls, stupid girls, and clueless girls. But we've survived more than the Drama that is High School. Graduation, brought with it the more harsh realities of life; although there still are stupid boys and mean girls out there. There have been family deaths and illnesses, divorce and conflict. When my friend Luke died, Ashley was there...actually she was at Walmart a few days after it had all happened. My family was out of town. I had just come back from the funeral and reality and exhaustion had finally settled in. I was was standing in the check out line with 3 kinds of icecream in one hand and 3 chick flicks in the other. I turned around and there she was. She wasn't supposed to be back in town until the following week. I collapsed into her arms as soon as I saw her. We went to her house and talked for hours. She listened and played with my hair while I told her the whole story with my head in her lap. She listened to me cry and talk. And she cried with me. She didn't say a lot. I didn't want her to and somehow she knew that. But what she did say comforted and strenghthed me. We laid there and hurt together. She asked me how I was doing even when everyone else had stopped asking.
"The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."
-Elbert Hubbard
Ashley knows more about me than most people. She knows the good, the bad and the ugly (and the uglier). Thanks Ash, for loving me anyway.
As far back as I can remember, Ashley dreamed of traveling the world. She had a whole list of places she wanted to see (and still does). A lot of them I'd never even heard of. She had books about exotic places and people. She was (and still is) brave and cool and exciting. And she inspired me (and still does). I found a note recently in my "memory box" that she passed to me in one of our classes in High School. It had a map that showed all of the places we would have to visit once we graduated. And you know what? We have crossed most of them off our list.
"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." -- Mark Twain
We've been to California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York together (and we have a few more in the planning stages). And we still like each other! Although I do remember her having to sleep in the bathtub one night in L.A. but I blame that on Cheryl Banks.
She inspires me to set goals and dream big. When she was visiting in Rhode Island we made lists of things that we wanted to do before we die. Thanks to her I have to make it all the way through Great Expectations. I've been stuck midway for over a year now. Are you allowed to change lists like that?
Her adventurous spirit rubbed off. We are rarely in the same country let alone the same state at the same time. That has been hard. I've had to spend a lot of my time missing her.
"Happiness is time spent with a friend and looking forward to sharing time with them again." -Lee Wilkinson
Lets just say that we have a lot of happiness - more of the looking forward to type. I will admit that I get jealous when she talks about friends that she hangs out with when I'm not around or when she is living somewhere else. But I think that has, in some ways, made the moments that we do have together that much better.
The two of us can talk for hours about everything and nothing. We don't need any other entertainment. Perhaps some food but that is it. I really liked the following quote that I found by Kinah Craik:
"Oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." Thanks for always blowing the chaff away Ash.
Ashley is an amazing mom. I want to raise my kids like she raises hers. She is fun and loving and patient. I think all moms worry about not being good enough. Most don't have anything to worry about. Actually it's often the ones not worrying about it that should be. I love how she looks at her kids. I love how she teaches them. But mostly, I love how she loves them.
Ashley is smart. She reads the classics and understands the world around her. She crafts. She sews. She can bake AND decorate cakes. She is a community volunteer. She has an amazing food storage collection. She repells. She hikes. She appreciates nature. She notices the details but can see the whole picture. She is genuine. She is good.
I can be 100% me around her. And I feel okay about me when I am.
"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." - Lois Wyse
It is offical. I need to write an Ashly book. I could go on but I probably shouldn't. Words cannot express (though try as I might) how grateful I am for my Ashley. Moving around so much as a kid and as a grown-up means that most of my friendships have unfortunately been temporary. Thankfully, with her it doesn't matter how long we go without seeing each other. It is nice to have some consistancy in my life when so much of it is filled with change.
I love you Ash!
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