It is so hard to try to pick memories from my daughter's life. There are so many things that it is difficult to choose what to write. She was happy most of the time. She loved being at home and having all of us around her. Ashley loved family things. She was quiet and shy and it took her a while to get to know people and for her to relax and be herself. Often, people would think her unfriendly because of that shyness. But once you got to know her, she was very easy to know and love. The things I guess I remember now are all the last memories that I shared with her. Things from her childhood do not seem as important as those last months of her life. We had talked a lot of school and her life after graduation. She did so want to make her life count. She wanted to do something important. Important to her was helping people, and those she wanted to help the most were children. Ashley had a way with kids. We often called her the pied piper, for everywhere we went, she attracted children. They all wanted to sit with her and sometimes at church she would have 4 or 5 kids on the bench with her, but she would always be smiling. She liked to give and do things for others. She had her own ways and she certainly had her temper, too. She would get upset sometimes about things and say her speech about it, but she never went to bed or out the door without making amend's first. She never left the house without saying ""Bye, I love you, Be Careful." Those words became her trademark. We all knew she would say them and now we cherish those words. She wrote notes to all of us also. I still find little post-it notes stuck places. I found a few in the top of my kitchen cabinets recently, just a few smiley faces and the sentence "Ashley loves all her family" written on it. I found them in the phone book, in my address book, in places that I cannot figure out why they are there. I do not question, I just treasure those little messages from her. Ashley has 3 brothers, 1 sister and 1 nephew that have had to learn to live with not having her here to share things with. John and I now must figure out how to go on living with this hole in our hearts. Our world is darker now, for some of the light went out the day Ashley Marie, age 18, left us all here. 

Ashley was on her way home from school that day. She was a senior at Covenant Christian Academy. She was looking forward to graduation and the future looked bright for her. She had accomplished so much in her short life, so much more than most adults think of doing. She had made her mark on the world. Her death left many broken hearts and touched the lives of many of her friends. She had stayed after school for basketball practice. She worked at Bruster's Ice Cream Shop and was on her way to work. She had driven only a couple of miles from the school when a man ran a stop sign and violently took her life. She was gone before I ever knew it, I never had a chance to say goodbye. It has been a year now, and the loneliness and hurt are still with us. We miss her more each passing day. She is greatly loved and missed by all who knew her.