July 18, 2025 • 44 mins
Leave me a note-I'd love to hear from you!
*Note: You might notice a little echo in parts of this conversation. Podcasting isn't always perfect, and while I did my very best in post editing, some audio echos and quicks couldn't be fully fixed. Thanks for your grace and for sticking with it. Mollie's story is truly worth hearing!
In this Part 1 conversation, Mollie shares shares the heartbreaking story of losing her first husband, Ashley, and the deep grief that followed. She reflects on their life together, the challenges they faced, and the profound impact of grief on her and their son, Colton. This episode is powerful in her walk through the grief and the strength to keep going through her life's darkest chapter.
Takeaways from Mollie:
- Mollie and Ashley's love story was vibrant and full of life.
- Grief can feel overwhelming, like a bomb exploding in your life.
- It's important to allow yourself to be a mess during grief.
- Support from family and friends is crucial in times of loss.
- Wrestling with faith is a common experience in grief.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Grief and Love
03:10 The Early Days of Loss
03:43 Remembering Ashley: A Life Full of Love
07:10 The Roller Coaster of Marriage and Family Life
08:19 Facing Genetic Challenges
09:56 The Day Everything Changed
16:37 The Decision to Let Go
21:17 Telling Colton: The Worst Day
23:41 Navigating the Aftermath of Loss
31:10 The Importance of Support
36:38 Judgment and Personal Decisions
39:30 Wrestling with Faith
42:04 Whispers of Wisdom to My Past Self
Contact Mollie if her story resonated with you:
FB: Mollie Hamilton
https://www.facebook.com/share/1CF3c1cMVj/?mibextid=wwXIfr
🎧 A big shoutout to Zach King for jumping in and helpingme clean up the audio on this episode, Part 1 and Liz Davis' story. So grateful for his help behind the scenes.
Connect with Zach: zac@warriorkingproduction.com
Co-Host of YouTube: Winter Wolf Den Podcast: FrostCast
https://www.youtube.com/@winterwolfsden
https://www.youtube.com/@winterwolfsden/podcasts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Molly and I go way back.
We've known each other sincehigh school, and her story is
one I've held close for a longtime.
What she's walked through is thekind of thing you hope no one
you love ever have to face.
And yet somehow she carried itwith the kind of grace that's
honest, raw, and quietlycourageous.
This will be broken into twoepisodes.
(00:21):
In this first part of ourconversation, we talk about what
it was like to lose her husband,Ashley.
how it felt in those early days,how it unraveled life as she
knew it, and what it looked liketo keep going even when
everything inside her wanted tostop.
My hope is that whether you'veknown grief intimately or you're
listening to better understandsomeone who has, you'll hear
(00:42):
something here that speaks toyour heart.
Let's begin with Ashley.
Not the loss, but the love thatcame first.
So before we talk about whatyou've walked through, I want to
ask...
What was Ashley like?
What made him him?
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
I think Ashley was really bigger than life.
He was a big man physically.
He had a big personality.
Everyone always remembered himfor his humor.
He had this undercover senseabout him.
You would be in a conversationwith him sometimes, and he
would...
(01:22):
you would say something and hewould pop off and respond, but
it would be very low key and itwould take you a minute and then
everybody would bust outlaughing.
He had this big humor, this bigsmile.
And whenever I think about him,I always think about his sense
of humor first.
He was very funny, but he loveddeeply and had a huge devotion.
(01:48):
to his family, his mother, hisfather, his siblings, his child,
his friends.
And he was well-respected.
So he was a big guy in all theways.
He just was special.
(02:08):
And I don't think there'saccurate words to really
describe who he was.
When I met him, it was actually,about a year before we started
dating, and he loved Mustangs.
We were in a Mustang car club,and I had a couple of Mustangs,
(02:30):
and he had one, and I knew himkind of from a distance, just in
passing.
I didn't know a lot about him,but I knew him, and we spoke
every weekend.
We spoke to one another just inpassing in social settings, but
you know, He just loved his carsand loved softball and loved his
friends and loved his family.
(02:51):
And he was just a good, easy,
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
funny guy.
Do you remember the moment youknew he was the one?
SPEAKER_01 (02:59):
Yeah, I think what a lot of people don't know about
Ashley and I is that I knew himfrom afar, you know, kind of in
passing.
But I had just broken up withsomeone when we went out on our
first date.
And Ashley and I only dated 30days before we got married.
(03:21):
We went in our first year.
I mean, we got, we went on ourfirst date in August.
We got married in September andwe just knew immediately that we
wanted to be together.
And the first year of ourmarriage was a whirlwind too.
It was like, we got married inSeptember.
I found out I was pregnant withour first child in November.
(03:43):
I got sick.
and lost my job.
And I got a job working at aCPA's office doing taxes.
We started our first businessand he quit his job and we
opened a paint store.
(04:04):
Automotive paint and body shopsupplies.
And I was pregnant and we hadone friend His best friend came
and worked with us.
And in August, still not a yearhas passed, I give birth to our
first child.
He had a child from his previousmarriage.
So I had a stepdaughter and ason.
(04:26):
And that was our first year.
Yeah, the first year wascompletely a roller coaster.
But in a good, exciting, scary,hold on for all you got kind of
way.
Yeah.
So you all were married for howlong?
We were married for nine yearswhen he died.
(04:46):
We didn't make it to 10 years.
We had that first year of life.
We're running our, you know,then after that, you know, we're
running our business.
We're kind of establishingthings.
I was a step parent at the time.
And I have my faults as aperson.
I was not a good step mom.
I didn't know what it took in mylate 20s to be a step parent.
(05:08):
I barely knew how to be a parentmyself.
You know, like we don't knowwhat we're doing when we have
kids.
We're just winging it.
And I had to start winging itwith a teenager, which was hard.
So, you know, we were strugglingat times in our marriage and
juggling and balancing our, youknow, our stepdaughter, his
(05:31):
daughter, my stepdaughter.
And then we found out that hissister passed away.
And Ashley had a geneticdisorder called Ehlers-Danlos,
which is a connective tissuedisease.
And it's a spectrum disease.
It can be hypermobility all theway up to vascular involvement,
(05:54):
where your veins and aortas andthings can tear open and you
die.
And it'd be very dangerous.
So when his sister died, wefound out that his sister had
vascular involvement.
She also had Ehlers-Danlos, likeI said, a genetic disease.
And we found out from thedoctors that she had vascular
(06:17):
involvement, that there's no waythat he didn't also have the
same type.
So he had issues that related tohis genetic disorder, but none
of them had ever presented inthat way.
And when she passed away is whenwe found out that he may also
have those issues.
(06:38):
And we went straight to thecardiologist and we stayed on
top of everything.
And at this time, his father wasrunning a Halloween store.
I now own, you know, thefranchise that operates a
Halloween chain that pops upevery year.
And he was struggling.
(07:00):
He had lost his daughter whohelped him in the business.
He was dealing with a lot and itwas just overwhelming for him.
And I had been helping him overthe years in the business.
And I stepped in a lot more whenhis sister passed away.
And we got to the point where hesaid, I want you guys to take
(07:20):
it.
Ashley was having some medicalissues with his vision, which
was terrible.
result, a result of his geneticdisorder.
And he was having a problemkeeping his driver's license
because of his vision.
And so he was an outsidesalesman and he drove, we built
our company selling automotivepaint and body shop supplies
(07:43):
into the point where we hadgrown as much as we were going
to grow.
And he was having a problem withhis vision and he wasn't going
to be able to drive anymore.
So we sold our business.
And I transitioned into theHalloween stores and then his
dad decided, I don't want to dothis anymore.
I want you and Ashley to takethis over.
So Ashley and I were workingtogether.
(08:06):
It was the first year that weowned these Halloween stores and
we had to open two locations.
And so Ashley and I ran onelocation together and his mother
and father ran the otherlocation in town together.
So that kind of gets us to thispoint.
(08:26):
We struggled through the season.
I kind of knew how to run thingsand I handled all the
administrative stuff and all theaccounting and stuff like that.
And Ashley hadn't really workedthat deep in the business like I
had.
So he was really learning and hewas getting his feet under him.
And it's a roller coaster of aseason.
(08:47):
I mean, we describe it as kindof like the circus comes down.
You build a whole store, youstock it, you run it, you do all
this stuff, and then you tearthe whole thing down.
So when November came, which isthe year he passed away,
November 2016, we tore down thestore and packed away all of our
fixtures and cleaned everythingup and turned our building over.
(09:10):
And Veterans Day weekend, wealways went to the beach in
Virginia Beach.
Sandbridge Beach, technically,like a group of couples that
always came together inNovember.
And we would just eat and havecocktails and play board games
and walk on the beach.
It's cold.
Nobody's there, but it's fun.
(09:31):
Just complete disconnection.
Don't do anything.
Lay around all day.
It's completely gluttonous.
So we had gone up there and theday that it happened, we were
driving home.
and we packed up that morning,and I got into a terrible fight
with him.
I fussed him so bad because heleft our pillows.
(09:57):
He left our pillows, and we hadto turn around and go back, and
I fussed at him.
So we drove home four hours, andas soon as we got home, we
didn't even have time to Wedidn't have time to throw our
stuff down.
We literally, his brother livedin the neighborhood behind us
and we went to a birthday party.
(10:18):
When we walked in, he sat downin the kitchen and I was kind of
talking to the kids.
He said, I don't feel too good.
And I said, what's wrong?
And he said, I don't know.
I don't feel good.
And I said, okay.
And I didn't really thinkanything of it.
And then he came to me and hesaid he wanted to leave and go
(10:38):
to get checked out.
And I immediately said, OK,let's go.
So I said, you know, we got inthe car and as I was driving.
He was just like watching thistest and he said, I don't think
I'm going to make it.
And there was a police officernext to us and I flagged him
down.
And they called the ambulanceand he pulled him out of the car
(11:01):
and got him off to the hospital.
It was a difficult day.
And I can remember we werereally, frankly, kind of jerked
around at the hospital a bit.
No one believed anything waswrong with them.
Because when you have a heartproblem, which is what he had,
(11:25):
they're looking for enzymes inyour blood work to show that
your heart tissue is dying orbreaking down.
And his enzymes were showingnormal.
So they told him he had aheartburn.
And I fussed and carried on withhim until they put him in
cardiac ICU.
And even though I was tellingthem about this condition, he's
(11:45):
got Ehlers-Danlos, his heart isrotated on the axis, all these
things that are reallyimportant.
No one was really hearing me.
I felt really frustrated becauseI was just like, no one is
listening to me.
So I finally, he was onDilaudid.
which is some really heavy painmedication.
(12:06):
And he was dead asleep in thebed and he sat straight up in
the bed, clutched his chest andstarted screaming in pain.
And I busted out of the room andI said, what do you need to do
to diagnose an aorticdissection?
And the guy in the ICUobservation said, he would need
(12:26):
an MRI.
And I said, if you don't get himdown there to get an MRI right
away, I'm going to tear thishospital down.
I
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
don't
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
blame you.
They took him down and they didthe MRI.
And on the way back, they had tocall the emergency, the thoracic
surgeon on call in.
And his chest was about halfwayfull of blood.
His aorta was, each time heclutched his chest and screamed,
the aorta was tearing just alittle bit more.
He had a partial dissection atthat time.
(12:59):
And when they pushed him back,The aorta ripped open before
they could do the surgery allthe way, full dissection.
And they did the surgery anywaysand tried.
But when he came out and we wentinto the cardiac ICU and they
pulled his eyes open to checkfor like reflex.
I was in there when they did itand there was no reflex because
(13:23):
when all the blood comes out,there's nothing there to
circulate oxygen.
And that was that.
Yeah.
But it was really hard to makethat decision.
I can remember when I came outof cardiac ICU because the doors
keep it closed off and they onlylet a few people back at the
time.
I literally just screamed andfell to my knees and my brothers
(13:47):
ran down the hall and scooped meup.
And they were just devastatedfor me.
And my, I mean, he wasn't gone,but he was gone, you know, but
(14:08):
it takes time for everyone toget, I know enough about medical
stuff to know that he was gone,you know, but it takes, there's
a lot of people there, hisparents, his daughter, you know,
a lot of people have to come tothat conclusion at the same time
that you do.
And I didn't want to take himaway from them because So I made
(14:29):
no decisions.
I just waited and gave everybodythe time and space to understand
the same thing that Iunderstood, which was at that
moment, I understood that hewasn't coming back, but they
needed to get there too.
I held my stepdaughter's handand I looked her in the face and
(14:52):
I said, I won't make anydecisions until we decide
together.
And only you and I will makethese decisions.
And I called her mother and Itold her, you need to come right
now.
She's going to need you.
She needs you.
Come now.
So Christy, that's her mother,came.
And we're very good friends.
(15:13):
She's a wonderful person.
Never any animosity or problemswith us.
She came and supported her, mystepdaughter.
And Ashley eventually got movedto Duke.
um they sent him up there andwhen we got there the doctor how
(15:34):
they called me in I never lefthis side I think we're maybe on
day four this went on for awhile and on day four the doctor
said what do you want me to dohe said why are you here and I
said I'm here because they toldme at Cape Fear Valley that he
(15:58):
needed to be here.
He said, I can't save him.
And I said, I know.
And I said, but he has a wholefamily out there and they need a
doctor to say that.
There were two doctors at thehospital that went back and
forth.
One was like, this isn't goingto happen.
(16:19):
And the other one was like, no,he can come through.
And I think it was the doctorwho operated on him that
couldn't let it go.
But when we got to Duke and theysaid, this isn't going to
happen.
He came out to the waiting roomand he sat down with the family
and he just said, we can't savehim.
And then I just looked at Amberand I said, what do you want to
(16:42):
do?
And she said, dad wouldn't wantto be like this.
And I said, no, he wouldn't.
Ashley and I have had a lot ofconversations after his sister
passed away about what hewanted, what he didn't want,
what life would look like.
I mean, really deep, openconversations.
(17:03):
He did not want us to strugglethe way that we struggled when
his sister passed away.
And so he was really clear.
And so...
I asked the doctor, what do wehave to do?
And he said, we really don'thave to do anything.
We just have to wait.
And we're going to stop givinghim all this medicine.
(17:24):
It's all the medicine that'skeeping things dragging on.
We're just going to stop.
You know, there's no pulling theplug.
We're just going to stop andhe's going to drift away.
So we went in and we held hishands and off he went.
(17:45):
And it did feel like a bomb blewup my whole life.
And the worst part about it forme personally was that my son
was only seven and he was not atthe hospital.
And I made a conscientiousdecision to not bring him to the
(18:07):
hospital because of all thesurgery and all the things that
they were doing to him.
He didn't even look likehimself.
It was the worst possible image.
I never wanted him to rememberhim the way that he looked in
those moments.
I wanted him to remember him forthe big, vivacious, funny guy
(18:33):
that he always knew.
So I never took him to thehospital.
And when we came home, I had tosit my son down and tell him
that he would never see his dadagain.
And that officially is the worstday of my life.
SPEAKER_02 (18:55):
Horribly.
SPEAKER_01 (18:59):
I'll never forget the scream that came from that
little boy.
But he knew instinctively.
I didn't even get to finish thesentence.
SPEAKER_02 (19:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Before I could even get halfway through the
sentence, he screamed.
It was awful.
And he just was broken.
He really was.
Because just like Ashley wasattached to Amber's hip when she
was a little girl.
Yeah.
Colton was attached to Ashleylike nobody's business.
(19:32):
I mean, I could have left thehouse and not come back for
weeks sometimes.
And I don't even know he wouldhave noticed.
UNKNOWN (19:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:39):
I did all the things nobody wanted because I'm the
mom, you know.
Dad was the fun guy.
That's usually how that works.
Dad's always the fun guy.
UNKNOWN (19:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
So it really was.
I mean, I felt like in thatmoment, if you go back when you
were a kid and you would play atthe beach and a wave would come
and crash over you and you justspin, spin, spin, spin, spin
underneath the water, that's howit felt.
UNKNOWN (20:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
So you don't even know how to come up for air.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
I'm still processing everything you just said.
I'm going to try to stop crying.
This is a lot.
This is a lot.
And this is the first time I'mgetting to hear everything that
you had been through.
What was that like for the nextseveral weeks?
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
First couple of days, like right after that
happens, you feel really almostdisconnected from my body.
It was very surreal and foggy,and it's busy.
There's a lot of societalexpectations to meet, planning
(20:52):
funerals, and there's a lot ofdecisions that have to be made,
and those were not decisionsthat I was willing to relinquish
to other people.
They were things that we haddiscussed, things that he wanted
how he wanted things to kind ofgo and I wanted to include other
people in those but I very muchwanted to make sure that he was
(21:13):
getting what he deserved youdon't really have a lot of time
in that at that point in time toeven think about your thoughts
and feelings so it's almost likeyou pause you're now making a
lot of decisions meeting a lotof expectations Trying to tend
(21:34):
to your child and theiremotional health and physical
well-being.
And to this day, like kind oflooking back retroactively, I
think about it and I swear, thisis probably an awful thing to
say.
But I'm telling you, funeralsare not about us.
They're not about the widow.
It's an awful time for us.
(21:56):
And they're not about us at all.
They're about everyone else.
Feeling bad.
Our children and me, We didn'tleave that feeling better in any
way, you know?
So many people came to Ashley'sfuneral.
There were hundreds of people atAshley's funeral.
When I say he was very wellrespected, he knew everybody.
(22:18):
He was very well respected.
He was very connected.
His parents are very connected.
My parents are very connected.
There were so many people atthat funeral, but they were
standing outside in the parkinglot trying to get in.
I mean, every seat was full,standing people everywhere.
But I left that and I felt justexhausted, just exhausted.
(22:43):
And you have all these peoplearound you, right?
And there were moments when Icalled in two cousins to come
with me who I'm very close to.
And we, I had to go buy, I hadto go buy a suit for the
funeral.
So I wouldn't look terrible.
And so we went off and we wentshopping and we had a normal
(23:04):
experience.
Like I remember that it wasnormal.
We laughed, we chatted, but it'san awful thing that you're
having to do.
But I can remember like momentsof times where it was like
normal and you felt good and youlaughed.
But then all of a sudden it'slike a vacuum.
Everyone sucks out of thepicture and everybody
(23:24):
disappears.
And then you're alone.
And you have to figure that out.
And it was like, at that timewhen that happened, there's
other stuff happening at thesame time.
There was a terrible hurricanein Fayetteville.
And it had flooded ourneighborhood.
(23:46):
We couldn't even get to ourhouse.
And we spent the month ofOctober, just about the whole
month of October, living with myparents.
We were in the heat of theHalloween season and couldn't
move back, couldn't move backbecause of the hurricane and the
(24:09):
flooding.
Now, we didn't have any damageto our house.
We were lucky, but we were kindof living at my parents' house.
All of our stuff was over there.
We had packed up a bunch ofstuff and we had moved it over
there because we knew ourneighborhood flooded a lot and
it was a lot of flooding.
And we stayed there and then wewent on this trip.
And when we came back was thefirst time we went to our house
(24:31):
in over a month.
We literally just threw ourstuff in the house and went to
the birthday party.
So when I left the hospital, Iwent back to my mother's house
and I did not go back to thehome that Ashley and I shared.
And I stayed there for a longtime at my mother's house, just
(24:51):
trying to Get my feet underneathmyself and figure out what I was
going to do.
And every time I walked intothat house, my heart broke
again.
I just couldn't do it.
I couldn't go back to the house.
And during that time frame, Iwasn't working either.
The stores were closed.
(25:11):
I had just kind of taken abreak.
I wasn't working every day.
I had a job part-time at ColtonSchool, but when I would go, I
tried to go back to work.
I really did.
But the other thing that kind ofhappened was everybody looked at
you differently.
Like they just looked at youwith the sadness, the sorrow.
(25:31):
Oh my God, she's so terrible.
Her life is a disaster.
You know, that's how I felt.
And so I felt like, Eithersomebody wanted me to do
something for them, give themsomething, didn't know what to
say, didn't know how to respondor walked on eggshells around
me.
And nobody was just normal.
(25:52):
And I just wanted people to benormal.
Right.
I just want to be normal.
And that was hard to do.
So.
I wasn't really ready to processeverything that had happened.
And I just really tried to benormal, even though I wasn't, I
didn't necessarily feel likefrozen.
(26:12):
I just felt disoriented.
Yeah.
Back to kind of like that beachwave thing.
Like I'm caught under the wavesand just kind of tumbling.
Don't know where I'm going orwhat I'm doing.
I'm just literally in the monthsafter that happening, I'm
literally just trying to, Find away to stand up out of that
churn and just stop for aminute.
(26:35):
And it took some time for thatto happen.
I never went back to the house.
I never lived in the house thatwe lived in again.
I was never able to do that.
After a little while, I got anapartment.
I bought all new furniture.
And I moved my personal things.
(26:58):
and stored the rest of thestuff.
I didn't throw anything away.
I just stored it away.
And I took...
Did he help you with the otherstuff?
His parents.
Yeah, his parents helped me.
My sister came and literallylived with me.
We slept in the same bedtogether in a two-bedroom
(27:19):
apartment.
Colton had a bedroom and I had abedroom that I shared with my
sister.
Yeah.
And we...
You know, trying to figure itout.
Yeah.
I mean, it was a mess.
Grief is messy.
It's ugly.
It's not pretty.
It's not fun.
(27:40):
It's not anything you wouldexpect.
And I definitely think that oneof the things that I learned
along the way is that it's okayto be a mess.
SPEAKER_02 (27:48):
Yeah.
You are allowed.
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
Yeah.
So people were treating youdifferently.
Yeah.
You just needed to go day byday.
How was Colton and Ashley'sdaughter?
How were they taking all of thiswhile you were trying to just
make it day to day?
SPEAKER_01 (28:07):
So I will speak for Amber.
Amber at that time, she was, shewas older.
She had graduated from college.
She was living her life.
She wasn't like a child or athome at that point in time.
Colton, on the other hand,Colton and I went straight to
(28:28):
therapy just as quick as youcould run the therapy.
We ran there.
Yeah.
You know, his therapist alwayssaid that he was really
emotionally mature for his age.
He struggled.
And the biggest problem I hadwith him was he didn't act out
(28:53):
or anything like that.
We had a lot of conversationsand I was really in survival
mode.
I was a mess, right?
And I wasn't a good mom at thattime at all, not even remotely
close because I was just adisaster.
And I tried, but I just, Ineeded help.
(29:15):
And I had a lot of supportaround me.
I had my parents, I had hisparents, I had my sister, my I
had the people who have workedwith me for years and years now.
I even had them around.
I had this group of peoplearound me who were helping me
the best that I could.
I had my dad and stuff likethat.
And I got him back to school andI got him into therapy and I
(29:38):
knew he was struggling.
And so we stayed there with myparents for a while so that he
would have A really strong setof people around him and
Ashley's parents were reallyinvolved.
I knew I was smart enough toknow that I wasn't capable in
the moment.
Everything that needed to bedone.
(30:00):
So I leaned on the people aroundme and was vulnerable enough to
ask for help.
I need you.
I need some help.
And that was hard to do becauseas a parent, we don't ever want
to admit that.
that we're failing and not doinga good job.
But the fact of the matter isthat in a time like that, it's
(30:20):
okay.
I can't do this.
I'm a mess.
I'm trying.
I mean, I would get up everymorning and I would pack his
lunch and I'd get him off toschool.
But there were things that Iwasn't very good at and they
were helping along the way.
The good thing was, is thatColton and I spent a lot of time
talking.
And because of the sharedexperience that we had, Like
(30:42):
we're closer because of ourstruggles.
The bad thing about it was, isthat I made mistakes in that
Colton almost became more of aconfidant at times.
And I started to see him, evenat a young age, feel like he had
(31:04):
to take care of me or look afterme.
once I recognized what washappening and, you know,
obviously I'm going to therapy,I'm talking to my therapist
about it and stuff like that.
I think being vulnerable andbeing honest is a good thing,
but he couldn't feel responsiblefor fixing me or taking care of
me.
Right.
Like I had to let him know I'mokay.
(31:26):
I'm okay.
And we went through some stufftogether that took us some time
to kind of recenter and getthings back.
Right.
But we did.
And I think that wholeexperience was, we are closer
together than a lot of moms andsons.
Yeah.
We just talk about things thatmost boys wouldn't talk with
(31:46):
their moms about.
Right.
You know, I mean, he'll tell meanything.
Right.
Sometimes I'm like, please don'ttell me that.
That's
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
funny.
Well, at least that, you know,that relationship wasn't
severed.
At least that relationshipbrought you two closer because
then you could grieve togetherinstead of grieving separately.
SPEAKER_01 (32:07):
Yeah.
And I think that being able toshow him and tell him things
that I was really thinking andfeeling gave him the opportunity
to also feel comfortable enoughto say, yeah, I feel, I feel
this too.
And his therapist described itas when children lose a parent
like that, like they only haveso much emotional maturity, no
matter how old continue tobreathe.
(32:30):
Right.
Until they reach full emotionalmaturity, they can't actually
finish grieving.
UNKNOWN (32:36):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (32:36):
And you have to give them that time and space.
So it's like he's constantlykind of replaying and going
through this over and over andover again, which is why we talk
about Ashley a lot.
We talk about what happened.
We talk about why some of thethings that happened, the
decisions that got made, why wemade those decisions.
And as he ages, I can see himbecoming more mature and
(32:59):
understanding.
SPEAKER_00 (33:00):
I think especially because we have kids the same
age, they need that extra bit toprocess at each level.
And I think that's really greatthat the two of you were able to
do that together because there'sa lot of things that even now
he's still processing andthere's still things that he's
going through that it's going tocarry into his life and how he
(33:21):
chooses to live his life.
SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
Well, and I think that kind of transitions us over
into at times I felt a lot ofjudgment.
From people looking at some ofmy decisions and giving me a
hard time about what I waschoosing to do.
One example of that is adecision that I made in relation
to what we're talking about.
Ashley was cremated.
(33:44):
That was what he wanted.
And I have held on to his ashes.
There are some people who havegiven me a really hard time
about the fact that I haven'tspread Ashley's ashes and done
what he wanted me to do withthem yet.
Even to this day, I
SPEAKER_00 (34:00):
still have Ashley.
So Ashley wanted you to spreadthem?
He did want me to spread them.
And
SPEAKER_01 (34:06):
I swear I will do it.
But I haven't yet.
And the reason why I've chosennot to do it, and I do believe
he would agree and understand,is that our son needs the time
and space to understandeverything.
And when I spread his ashes, Iwant him to be able to say
(34:29):
goodbye.
SPEAKER_02 (34:30):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
To have the closure that he needs.
And that means that I'm going tohold them until he can
participate and fully call forhim and understand.
And hopefully we'll be thatpoint in time where we can all
have more healing and moreclosure, but all together.
(34:53):
I didn't think that it would befair for me to get that and
Amber to get that without Coltonhaving that opportunity.
And at eight years old, hewasn't going to get that.
So I'm waiting.
And a lot of people got a lot tosay about that sometimes, but I
don't care.
I had to make decisions alongthe way to ultimately cultivate
(35:20):
my new existence.
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:22):
And, Part of that meant that choices that I made,
sometimes they weren't for thebest.
Sometimes it was just aboutsurviving emotionally,
physically, whatever.
And I was just doing the best Icould at certain times.
And then other times I was, Itransitioned into kind of fake
it until you make it.
(35:43):
And then ultimately my circle,one of the things I noticed, one
of the biggest changes after isthat my circle changed a lot.
Some of, some of the people Ilost because I decided that they
weren't the best people for mein those moments.
And that's okay.
People come and people go andthat's all right.
(36:05):
That doesn't make them badpeople.
It doesn't make me bad people.
It just means our time togetheris over.
And some people I lost and Iregret, you know, and I miss
those people and I wish somethings hadn't have happened, but
I have to be okay with thatbecause ultimately I lost them
because of the decisions that Imade.
(36:26):
But those decisions led me downthe path and put me where I was
supposed to be.
Right.
And I'm comfortable with that.
I might be sad about the loss ofthose people, but I'm
comfortable with it.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (36:42):
And I know we talked a little bit about your faith in
this.
So I'm just curious, as you weretrying to survive, Where did God
meet you in your grief or didyou wrestle with him a little?
SPEAKER_01 (36:54):
Oh man, I wrestled bad.
I was angry.
I don't just mean a little bitangry.
I mean, I was really angry.
I would say that my thing kindof cracked and then built back
so slowly over time.
It took me, it took perspectiveand time and distance for me to
(37:18):
be able to see his work.
And I feel like my faith isstronger now, but looking back,
I definitely fought and wrestledtrying to understand how this
could be my path.
Why is this my path?
Why is this on me?
But I know now that he onlygives us what we can handle.
(37:40):
He places us where we'resupposed to be when we're
supposed to be there.
And that faith is just that wecan't, we can't see it.
We can't touch it.
But you have to believe that heleads us where we belong and
that all of these things that weendure or encounter or overcome
(38:00):
give us tools that we take withus into life and that it's going
to help us grow so that when weencounter this next phase of his
plan, we're going to haveeverything we need to be
successful.
And that growth doesn't alwaysfeel good, look good, or any of
that.
Right?
(38:20):
It's very painful.
It can be very painful.
I think attitude and just beingable to have faith that there's
a path for you that makes senseis important.
But in the beginning, it wasawful.
I mean, it was messy anddisastrous.
Like I went to church and satdown at our church and I didn't
even, I couldn't even make it tothe service.
(38:41):
I just cried and left.
I couldn't even go back to ourchurch.
Yeah.
It was painful.
It was hard.
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
I imagine it was.
I don't think anybody listeningto all that you've been through
would say that that's notsomething that they wouldn't do
the same.
If you could go back to thatversion of yourself, because you
did have a shift, what would youwhisper to her?
SPEAKER_01 (39:08):
Okay, so I would probably say I would tell
myself, you won't feel like thisforever, right?
UNKNOWN (39:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (39:16):
That it's okay to be messy.
I really didn't want to lookmessy on the outside because I
felt a lot of judgment, a lot ofthings.
But it's OK.
It was OK to be messy.
And I would have told myselfit's OK to be a mess, to be a
disaster.
But this is my life and I don'thave to please everyone else
(39:40):
around me.
It's OK to make decisions for meand my son.
Yeah.
And I would have told me to givemyself a little more grace.
Judgment didn't just come fromother people.
And we do this all the time inour life.
We judge ourselves.
We are so hard on ourselves andthe world is ugly enough.
(40:01):
We don't need any more badjudgment.
Absolutely.
Plenty of that is coming fromoutside.
We need to give ourselves grace.
And I would have told myselfthat.
I also would say that I wasn'tdoing Ashley any disservice by
trying to find and create andcultivate a new life for myself
(40:23):
judgment from outside judgmentfrom myself at times I felt like
I wasn't allowed to move on butthe fact of the matter is I am
allowed to move on I am allowedto Move forward.
And I felt a lot of guiltassociated with moving on,
(40:44):
moving forward.
I did it anyways.
The dialogue was very, you know,was negative for me, myself, not
externally.
I didn't put that off on my kidsor anything, but just
internally, the way I spoke tomyself wasn't very nice because
I felt a lot of guilt.
And I didn't need to feelguilty.
Life moves on and I don't haveto stand still.
(41:07):
No.
I think those are all thingsthat I would have told myself at
the moment.
Yeah.
Letting go of what our dreamswere, what our life was, what
our plan was, was the hardest.
SPEAKER_02 (41:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
And we had a life that we planned together.
Like we knew where we were goingand it was hard to let go of
that.
So there was a part of me thatwanted to stand still and, And
live in the past.
And there was a part of me thatwanted to move on because it was
the right thing to do for me,for my son, and even for Ashley.
SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
Yeah, because you can't stay there.
No.
Life keeps going.
Yes.
You can't just stay there.
You just end up wallowing insomething that not even God
wants for you.
SPEAKER_01 (41:55):
Yes.
And I think Ashley...
Ashley watched his parents.
I'm not saying they waller intheir grief.
But one of the reasons whyAshley chose to be cremated was
not only did Ashley's sisterpass away, but her three
children passed away from agenetic disorder.
(42:17):
All three before the age offive.
So Ashley's parents haveexperienced an extreme amount of
loss.
They've lost two of theirchildren.
and three of theirgrandchildren.
So there's a lot of loss there.
And Ashley didn't want hisparents and his children to have
(42:39):
to go back to the cemetery andput flowers.
There's a lot of obligation thatcomes with that.
And he didn't want us toremember.
Some of the conversations we hadis, I don't want my kids to
remember the worst day of ourlives.
In that way, he wants us tocarry him on in a positive way
(43:01):
and talk about his funny storiesand his humor and all this great
stuff about him.
And that doesn't have to be doneat a cemetery, which is why I
chose to be cremated.
SPEAKER_00 (43:11):
I didn't know that his parents had lost the three
grandkids.
So that's the weight.
I really want to thank you forthis, Molly.
I know taking us through thishas been heavy and I know that I
feel the weight of it and I knowthe listeners and those will be
hearing your story will as well,but we'll just take a quick
breath for a moment because weknow that life has to shift and
(43:34):
move forward, right?
That's right.
We'll pause the conversationhere, but Molly's story doesn't
end with loss.
In part two, we talk about whatit means to rebuild, to love
again, and to live fully evenafter deep grief.
So leave your thoughts, take adeep breath, and get ready for
the next episode.
(43:55):
If this episode moved you,please share it with someone who
might need it and if you haven'talready, follow the show so that
part two shows up right in yourfeed.
While you're waiting, I'd be sograteful if you could leave a
review.
It really helps others discoverhidden chapters and hear stories
that matter.
Molly and I go way back.
We've known each other sincehigh school, and her story is
one I've held close for a longtime.
What she's walked through is thekind of thing you hope no one
you love ever have to face.
And yet somehow she carried itwith the kind of grace that's
honest, raw, and quietlycourageous.
This will be broken into twoepisodes.
(00:21):
In this first part of ourconversation, we talk about what
it was like to lose her husband,Ashley.
how it felt in those early days,how it unraveled life as she
knew it, and what it looked liketo keep going even when
everything inside her wanted tostop.
My hope is that whether you'veknown grief intimately or you're
listening to better understandsomeone who has, you'll hear
(00:42):
something here that speaks toyour heart.
Let's begin with Ashley.
Not the loss, but the love thatcame first.
So before we talk about whatyou've walked through, I want to
ask...
What was Ashley like?
What made him him?
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
I think Ashley was really bigger than life.
He was a big man physically.
He had a big personality.
Everyone always remembered himfor his humor.
He had this undercover senseabout him.
You would be in a conversationwith him sometimes, and he
would...
(01:22):
you would say something and hewould pop off and respond, but
it would be very low key and itwould take you a minute and then
everybody would bust outlaughing.
He had this big humor, this bigsmile.
And whenever I think about him,I always think about his sense
of humor first.
He was very funny, but he loveddeeply and had a huge devotion.
(01:48):
to his family, his mother, hisfather, his siblings, his child,
his friends.
And he was well-respected.
So he was a big guy in all theways.
He just was special.
(02:08):
And I don't think there'saccurate words to really
describe who he was.
When I met him, it was actually,about a year before we started
dating, and he loved Mustangs.
We were in a Mustang car club,and I had a couple of Mustangs,
(02:30):
and he had one, and I knew himkind of from a distance, just in
passing.
I didn't know a lot about him,but I knew him, and we spoke
every weekend.
We spoke to one another just inpassing in social settings, but
you know, He just loved his carsand loved softball and loved his
friends and loved his family.
(02:51):
And he was just a good, easy,
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
funny guy.
Do you remember the moment youknew he was the one?
SPEAKER_01 (02:59):
Yeah, I think what a lot of people don't know about
Ashley and I is that I knew himfrom afar, you know, kind of in
passing.
But I had just broken up withsomeone when we went out on our
first date.
And Ashley and I only dated 30days before we got married.
(03:21):
We went in our first year.
I mean, we got, we went on ourfirst date in August.
We got married in September andwe just knew immediately that we
wanted to be together.
And the first year of ourmarriage was a whirlwind too.
It was like, we got married inSeptember.
I found out I was pregnant withour first child in November.
(03:43):
I got sick.
and lost my job.
And I got a job working at aCPA's office doing taxes.
We started our first businessand he quit his job and we
opened a paint store.
(04:04):
Automotive paint and body shopsupplies.
And I was pregnant and we hadone friend His best friend came
and worked with us.
And in August, still not a yearhas passed, I give birth to our
first child.
He had a child from his previousmarriage.
So I had a stepdaughter and ason.
(04:26):
And that was our first year.
Yeah, the first year wascompletely a roller coaster.
But in a good, exciting, scary,hold on for all you got kind of
way.
Yeah.
So you all were married for howlong?
We were married for nine yearswhen he died.
(04:46):
We didn't make it to 10 years.
We had that first year of life.
We're running our, you know,then after that, you know, we're
running our business.
We're kind of establishingthings.
I was a step parent at the time.
And I have my faults as aperson.
I was not a good step mom.
I didn't know what it took in mylate 20s to be a step parent.
(05:08):
I barely knew how to be a parentmyself.
You know, like we don't knowwhat we're doing when we have
kids.
We're just winging it.
And I had to start winging itwith a teenager, which was hard.
So, you know, we were strugglingat times in our marriage and
juggling and balancing our, youknow, our stepdaughter, his
(05:31):
daughter, my stepdaughter.
And then we found out that hissister passed away.
And Ashley had a geneticdisorder called Ehlers-Danlos,
which is a connective tissuedisease.
And it's a spectrum disease.
It can be hypermobility all theway up to vascular involvement,
(05:54):
where your veins and aortas andthings can tear open and you
die.
And it'd be very dangerous.
So when his sister died, wefound out that his sister had
vascular involvement.
She also had Ehlers-Danlos, likeI said, a genetic disease.
And we found out from thedoctors that she had vascular
(06:17):
involvement, that there's no waythat he didn't also have the
same type.
So he had issues that related tohis genetic disorder, but none
of them had ever presented inthat way.
And when she passed away is whenwe found out that he may also
have those issues.
(06:38):
And we went straight to thecardiologist and we stayed on
top of everything.
And at this time, his father wasrunning a Halloween store.
I now own, you know, thefranchise that operates a
Halloween chain that pops upevery year.
And he was struggling.
(07:00):
He had lost his daughter whohelped him in the business.
He was dealing with a lot and itwas just overwhelming for him.
And I had been helping him overthe years in the business.
And I stepped in a lot more whenhis sister passed away.
And we got to the point where hesaid, I want you guys to take
(07:20):
it.
Ashley was having some medicalissues with his vision, which
was terrible.
result, a result of his geneticdisorder.
And he was having a problemkeeping his driver's license
because of his vision.
And so he was an outsidesalesman and he drove, we built
our company selling automotivepaint and body shop supplies
(07:43):
into the point where we hadgrown as much as we were going
to grow.
And he was having a problem withhis vision and he wasn't going
to be able to drive anymore.
So we sold our business.
And I transitioned into theHalloween stores and then his
dad decided, I don't want to dothis anymore.
I want you and Ashley to takethis over.
So Ashley and I were workingtogether.
(08:06):
It was the first year that weowned these Halloween stores and
we had to open two locations.
And so Ashley and I ran onelocation together and his mother
and father ran the otherlocation in town together.
So that kind of gets us to thispoint.
(08:26):
We struggled through the season.
I kind of knew how to run thingsand I handled all the
administrative stuff and all theaccounting and stuff like that.
And Ashley hadn't really workedthat deep in the business like I
had.
So he was really learning and hewas getting his feet under him.
And it's a roller coaster of aseason.
(08:47):
I mean, we describe it as kindof like the circus comes down.
You build a whole store, youstock it, you run it, you do all
this stuff, and then you tearthe whole thing down.
So when November came, which isthe year he passed away,
November 2016, we tore down thestore and packed away all of our
fixtures and cleaned everythingup and turned our building over.
(09:10):
And Veterans Day weekend, wealways went to the beach in
Virginia Beach.
Sandbridge Beach, technically,like a group of couples that
always came together inNovember.
And we would just eat and havecocktails and play board games
and walk on the beach.
It's cold.
Nobody's there, but it's fun.
(09:31):
Just complete disconnection.
Don't do anything.
Lay around all day.
It's completely gluttonous.
So we had gone up there and theday that it happened, we were
driving home.
and we packed up that morning,and I got into a terrible fight
with him.
I fussed him so bad because heleft our pillows.
(09:57):
He left our pillows, and we hadto turn around and go back, and
I fussed at him.
So we drove home four hours, andas soon as we got home, we
didn't even have time to Wedidn't have time to throw our
stuff down.
We literally, his brother livedin the neighborhood behind us
and we went to a birthday party.
(10:18):
When we walked in, he sat downin the kitchen and I was kind of
talking to the kids.
He said, I don't feel too good.
And I said, what's wrong?
And he said, I don't know.
I don't feel good.
And I said, okay.
And I didn't really thinkanything of it.
And then he came to me and hesaid he wanted to leave and go
(10:38):
to get checked out.
And I immediately said, OK,let's go.
So I said, you know, we got inthe car and as I was driving.
He was just like watching thistest and he said, I don't think
I'm going to make it.
And there was a police officernext to us and I flagged him
down.
And they called the ambulanceand he pulled him out of the car
(11:01):
and got him off to the hospital.
It was a difficult day.
And I can remember we werereally, frankly, kind of jerked
around at the hospital a bit.
No one believed anything waswrong with them.
Because when you have a heartproblem, which is what he had,
(11:25):
they're looking for enzymes inyour blood work to show that
your heart tissue is dying orbreaking down.
And his enzymes were showingnormal.
So they told him he had aheartburn.
And I fussed and carried on withhim until they put him in
cardiac ICU.
And even though I was tellingthem about this condition, he's
(11:45):
got Ehlers-Danlos, his heart isrotated on the axis, all these
things that are reallyimportant.
No one was really hearing me.
I felt really frustrated becauseI was just like, no one is
listening to me.
So I finally, he was onDilaudid.
which is some really heavy painmedication.
(12:06):
And he was dead asleep in thebed and he sat straight up in
the bed, clutched his chest andstarted screaming in pain.
And I busted out of the room andI said, what do you need to do
to diagnose an aorticdissection?
And the guy in the ICUobservation said, he would need
(12:26):
an MRI.
And I said, if you don't get himdown there to get an MRI right
away, I'm going to tear thishospital down.
I
SPEAKER_02 (12:35):
don't
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
blame you.
They took him down and they didthe MRI.
And on the way back, they had tocall the emergency, the thoracic
surgeon on call in.
And his chest was about halfwayfull of blood.
His aorta was, each time heclutched his chest and screamed,
the aorta was tearing just alittle bit more.
He had a partial dissection atthat time.
(12:59):
And when they pushed him back,The aorta ripped open before
they could do the surgery allthe way, full dissection.
And they did the surgery anywaysand tried.
But when he came out and we wentinto the cardiac ICU and they
pulled his eyes open to checkfor like reflex.
I was in there when they did itand there was no reflex because
(13:23):
when all the blood comes out,there's nothing there to
circulate oxygen.
And that was that.
Yeah.
But it was really hard to makethat decision.
I can remember when I came outof cardiac ICU because the doors
keep it closed off and they onlylet a few people back at the
time.
I literally just screamed andfell to my knees and my brothers
(13:47):
ran down the hall and scooped meup.
And they were just devastatedfor me.
And my, I mean, he wasn't gone,but he was gone, you know, but
(14:08):
it takes time for everyone toget, I know enough about medical
stuff to know that he was gone,you know, but it takes, there's
a lot of people there, hisparents, his daughter, you know,
a lot of people have to come tothat conclusion at the same time
that you do.
And I didn't want to take himaway from them because So I made
(14:29):
no decisions.
I just waited and gave everybodythe time and space to understand
the same thing that Iunderstood, which was at that
moment, I understood that hewasn't coming back, but they
needed to get there too.
I held my stepdaughter's handand I looked her in the face and
(14:52):
I said, I won't make anydecisions until we decide
together.
And only you and I will makethese decisions.
And I called her mother and Itold her, you need to come right
now.
She's going to need you.
She needs you.
Come now.
So Christy, that's her mother,came.
And we're very good friends.
(15:13):
She's a wonderful person.
Never any animosity or problemswith us.
She came and supported her, mystepdaughter.
And Ashley eventually got movedto Duke.
um they sent him up there andwhen we got there the doctor how
(15:34):
they called me in I never lefthis side I think we're maybe on
day four this went on for awhile and on day four the doctor
said what do you want me to dohe said why are you here and I
said I'm here because they toldme at Cape Fear Valley that he
(15:58):
needed to be here.
He said, I can't save him.
And I said, I know.
And I said, but he has a wholefamily out there and they need a
doctor to say that.
There were two doctors at thehospital that went back and
forth.
One was like, this isn't goingto happen.
(16:19):
And the other one was like, no,he can come through.
And I think it was the doctorwho operated on him that
couldn't let it go.
But when we got to Duke and theysaid, this isn't going to
happen.
He came out to the waiting roomand he sat down with the family
and he just said, we can't savehim.
And then I just looked at Amberand I said, what do you want to
(16:42):
do?
And she said, dad wouldn't wantto be like this.
And I said, no, he wouldn't.
Ashley and I have had a lot ofconversations after his sister
passed away about what hewanted, what he didn't want,
what life would look like.
I mean, really deep, openconversations.
(17:03):
He did not want us to strugglethe way that we struggled when
his sister passed away.
And so he was really clear.
And so...
I asked the doctor, what do wehave to do?
And he said, we really don'thave to do anything.
We just have to wait.
And we're going to stop givinghim all this medicine.
(17:24):
It's all the medicine that'skeeping things dragging on.
We're just going to stop.
You know, there's no pulling theplug.
We're just going to stop andhe's going to drift away.
So we went in and we held hishands and off he went.
(17:45):
And it did feel like a bomb blewup my whole life.
And the worst part about it forme personally was that my son
was only seven and he was not atthe hospital.
And I made a conscientiousdecision to not bring him to the
(18:07):
hospital because of all thesurgery and all the things that
they were doing to him.
He didn't even look likehimself.
It was the worst possible image.
I never wanted him to rememberhim the way that he looked in
those moments.
I wanted him to remember him forthe big, vivacious, funny guy
(18:33):
that he always knew.
So I never took him to thehospital.
And when we came home, I had tosit my son down and tell him
that he would never see his dadagain.
And that officially is the worstday of my life.
SPEAKER_02 (18:55):
Horribly.
SPEAKER_01 (18:59):
I'll never forget the scream that came from that
little boy.
But he knew instinctively.
I didn't even get to finish thesentence.
SPEAKER_02 (19:11):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Before I could even get halfway through the
sentence, he screamed.
It was awful.
And he just was broken.
He really was.
Because just like Ashley wasattached to Amber's hip when she
was a little girl.
Yeah.
Colton was attached to Ashleylike nobody's business.
(19:32):
I mean, I could have left thehouse and not come back for
weeks sometimes.
And I don't even know he wouldhave noticed.
UNKNOWN (19:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:39):
I did all the things nobody wanted because I'm the
mom, you know.
Dad was the fun guy.
That's usually how that works.
Dad's always the fun guy.
UNKNOWN (19:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
So it really was.
I mean, I felt like in thatmoment, if you go back when you
were a kid and you would play atthe beach and a wave would come
and crash over you and you justspin, spin, spin, spin, spin
underneath the water, that's howit felt.
UNKNOWN (20:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (20:10):
So you don't even know how to come up for air.
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
I'm still processing everything you just said.
I'm going to try to stop crying.
This is a lot.
This is a lot.
And this is the first time I'mgetting to hear everything that
you had been through.
What was that like for the nextseveral weeks?
SPEAKER_01 (20:31):
First couple of days, like right after that
happens, you feel really almostdisconnected from my body.
It was very surreal and foggy,and it's busy.
There's a lot of societalexpectations to meet, planning
(20:52):
funerals, and there's a lot ofdecisions that have to be made,
and those were not decisionsthat I was willing to relinquish
to other people.
They were things that we haddiscussed, things that he wanted
how he wanted things to kind ofgo and I wanted to include other
people in those but I very muchwanted to make sure that he was
(21:13):
getting what he deserved youdon't really have a lot of time
in that at that point in time toeven think about your thoughts
and feelings so it's almost likeyou pause you're now making a
lot of decisions meeting a lotof expectations Trying to tend
(21:34):
to your child and theiremotional health and physical
well-being.
And to this day, like kind oflooking back retroactively, I
think about it and I swear, thisis probably an awful thing to
say.
But I'm telling you, funeralsare not about us.
They're not about the widow.
It's an awful time for us.
(21:56):
And they're not about us at all.
They're about everyone else.
Feeling bad.
Our children and me, We didn'tleave that feeling better in any
way, you know?
So many people came to Ashley'sfuneral.
There were hundreds of people atAshley's funeral.
When I say he was very wellrespected, he knew everybody.
(22:18):
He was very well respected.
He was very connected.
His parents are very connected.
My parents are very connected.
There were so many people atthat funeral, but they were
standing outside in the parkinglot trying to get in.
I mean, every seat was full,standing people everywhere.
But I left that and I felt justexhausted, just exhausted.
(22:43):
And you have all these peoplearound you, right?
And there were moments when Icalled in two cousins to come
with me who I'm very close to.
And we, I had to go buy, I hadto go buy a suit for the
funeral.
So I wouldn't look terrible.
And so we went off and we wentshopping and we had a normal
(23:04):
experience.
Like I remember that it wasnormal.
We laughed, we chatted, but it'san awful thing that you're
having to do.
But I can remember like momentsof times where it was like
normal and you felt good and youlaughed.
But then all of a sudden it'slike a vacuum.
Everyone sucks out of thepicture and everybody
(23:24):
disappears.
And then you're alone.
And you have to figure that out.
And it was like, at that timewhen that happened, there's
other stuff happening at thesame time.
There was a terrible hurricanein Fayetteville.
And it had flooded ourneighborhood.
(23:46):
We couldn't even get to ourhouse.
And we spent the month ofOctober, just about the whole
month of October, living with myparents.
We were in the heat of theHalloween season and couldn't
move back, couldn't move backbecause of the hurricane and the
(24:09):
flooding.
Now, we didn't have any damageto our house.
We were lucky, but we were kindof living at my parents' house.
All of our stuff was over there.
We had packed up a bunch ofstuff and we had moved it over
there because we knew ourneighborhood flooded a lot and
it was a lot of flooding.
And we stayed there and then wewent on this trip.
And when we came back was thefirst time we went to our house
(24:31):
in over a month.
We literally just threw ourstuff in the house and went to
the birthday party.
So when I left the hospital, Iwent back to my mother's house
and I did not go back to thehome that Ashley and I shared.
And I stayed there for a longtime at my mother's house, just
(24:51):
trying to Get my feet underneathmyself and figure out what I was
going to do.
And every time I walked intothat house, my heart broke
again.
I just couldn't do it.
I couldn't go back to the house.
And during that time frame, Iwasn't working either.
The stores were closed.
(25:11):
I had just kind of taken abreak.
I wasn't working every day.
I had a job part-time at ColtonSchool, but when I would go, I
tried to go back to work.
I really did.
But the other thing that kind ofhappened was everybody looked at
you differently.
Like they just looked at youwith the sadness, the sorrow.
(25:31):
Oh my God, she's so terrible.
Her life is a disaster.
You know, that's how I felt.
And so I felt like, Eithersomebody wanted me to do
something for them, give themsomething, didn't know what to
say, didn't know how to respondor walked on eggshells around
me.
And nobody was just normal.
(25:52):
And I just wanted people to benormal.
Right.
I just want to be normal.
And that was hard to do.
So.
I wasn't really ready to processeverything that had happened.
And I just really tried to benormal, even though I wasn't, I
didn't necessarily feel likefrozen.
(26:12):
I just felt disoriented.
Yeah.
Back to kind of like that beachwave thing.
Like I'm caught under the wavesand just kind of tumbling.
Don't know where I'm going orwhat I'm doing.
I'm just literally in the monthsafter that happening, I'm
literally just trying to, Find away to stand up out of that
churn and just stop for aminute.
(26:35):
And it took some time for thatto happen.
I never went back to the house.
I never lived in the house thatwe lived in again.
I was never able to do that.
After a little while, I got anapartment.
I bought all new furniture.
And I moved my personal things.
(26:58):
and stored the rest of thestuff.
I didn't throw anything away.
I just stored it away.
And I took...
Did he help you with the otherstuff?
His parents.
Yeah, his parents helped me.
My sister came and literallylived with me.
We slept in the same bedtogether in a two-bedroom
(27:19):
apartment.
Colton had a bedroom and I had abedroom that I shared with my
sister.
Yeah.
And we...
You know, trying to figure itout.
Yeah.
I mean, it was a mess.
Grief is messy.
It's ugly.
It's not pretty.
It's not fun.
(27:40):
It's not anything you wouldexpect.
And I definitely think that oneof the things that I learned
along the way is that it's okayto be a mess.
SPEAKER_02 (27:48):
Yeah.
You are allowed.
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (27:53):
Yeah.
So people were treating youdifferently.
Yeah.
You just needed to go day byday.
How was Colton and Ashley'sdaughter?
How were they taking all of thiswhile you were trying to just
make it day to day?
SPEAKER_01 (28:07):
So I will speak for Amber.
Amber at that time, she was, shewas older.
She had graduated from college.
She was living her life.
She wasn't like a child or athome at that point in time.
Colton, on the other hand,Colton and I went straight to
(28:28):
therapy just as quick as youcould run the therapy.
We ran there.
Yeah.
You know, his therapist alwayssaid that he was really
emotionally mature for his age.
He struggled.
And the biggest problem I hadwith him was he didn't act out
(28:53):
or anything like that.
We had a lot of conversationsand I was really in survival
mode.
I was a mess, right?
And I wasn't a good mom at thattime at all, not even remotely
close because I was just adisaster.
And I tried, but I just, Ineeded help.
(29:15):
And I had a lot of supportaround me.
I had my parents, I had hisparents, I had my sister, my I
had the people who have workedwith me for years and years now.
I even had them around.
I had this group of peoplearound me who were helping me
the best that I could.
I had my dad and stuff likethat.
And I got him back to school andI got him into therapy and I
(29:38):
knew he was struggling.
And so we stayed there with myparents for a while so that he
would have A really strong setof people around him and
Ashley's parents were reallyinvolved.
I knew I was smart enough toknow that I wasn't capable in
the moment.
Everything that needed to bedone.
(30:00):
So I leaned on the people aroundme and was vulnerable enough to
ask for help.
I need you.
I need some help.
And that was hard to do becauseas a parent, we don't ever want
to admit that.
that we're failing and not doinga good job.
But the fact of the matter isthat in a time like that, it's
(30:20):
okay.
I can't do this.
I'm a mess.
I'm trying.
I mean, I would get up everymorning and I would pack his
lunch and I'd get him off toschool.
But there were things that Iwasn't very good at and they
were helping along the way.
The good thing was, is thatColton and I spent a lot of time
talking.
And because of the sharedexperience that we had, Like
(30:42):
we're closer because of ourstruggles.
The bad thing about it was, isthat I made mistakes in that
Colton almost became more of aconfidant at times.
And I started to see him, evenat a young age, feel like he had
(31:04):
to take care of me or look afterme.
once I recognized what washappening and, you know,
obviously I'm going to therapy,I'm talking to my therapist
about it and stuff like that.
I think being vulnerable andbeing honest is a good thing,
but he couldn't feel responsiblefor fixing me or taking care of
me.
Right.
Like I had to let him know I'mokay.
(31:26):
I'm okay.
And we went through some stufftogether that took us some time
to kind of recenter and getthings back.
Right.
But we did.
And I think that wholeexperience was, we are closer
together than a lot of moms andsons.
Yeah.
We just talk about things thatmost boys wouldn't talk with
(31:46):
their moms about.
Right.
You know, I mean, he'll tell meanything.
Right.
Sometimes I'm like, please don'ttell me that.
That's
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
funny.
Well, at least that, you know,that relationship wasn't
severed.
At least that relationshipbrought you two closer because
then you could grieve togetherinstead of grieving separately.
SPEAKER_01 (32:07):
Yeah.
And I think that being able toshow him and tell him things
that I was really thinking andfeeling gave him the opportunity
to also feel comfortable enoughto say, yeah, I feel, I feel
this too.
And his therapist described itas when children lose a parent
like that, like they only haveso much emotional maturity, no
matter how old continue tobreathe.
(32:30):
Right.
Until they reach full emotionalmaturity, they can't actually
finish grieving.
UNKNOWN (32:36):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (32:36):
And you have to give them that time and space.
So it's like he's constantlykind of replaying and going
through this over and over andover again, which is why we talk
about Ashley a lot.
We talk about what happened.
We talk about why some of thethings that happened, the
decisions that got made, why wemade those decisions.
And as he ages, I can see himbecoming more mature and
(32:59):
understanding.
SPEAKER_00 (33:00):
I think especially because we have kids the same
age, they need that extra bit toprocess at each level.
And I think that's really greatthat the two of you were able to
do that together because there'sa lot of things that even now
he's still processing andthere's still things that he's
going through that it's going tocarry into his life and how he
(33:21):
chooses to live his life.
SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
Well, and I think that kind of transitions us over
into at times I felt a lot ofjudgment.
From people looking at some ofmy decisions and giving me a
hard time about what I waschoosing to do.
One example of that is adecision that I made in relation
to what we're talking about.
Ashley was cremated.
(33:44):
That was what he wanted.
And I have held on to his ashes.
There are some people who havegiven me a really hard time
about the fact that I haven'tspread Ashley's ashes and done
what he wanted me to do withthem yet.
Even to this day, I
SPEAKER_00 (34:00):
still have Ashley.
So Ashley wanted you to spreadthem?
He did want me to spread them.
And
SPEAKER_01 (34:06):
I swear I will do it.
But I haven't yet.
And the reason why I've chosennot to do it, and I do believe
he would agree and understand,is that our son needs the time
and space to understandeverything.
And when I spread his ashes, Iwant him to be able to say
(34:29):
goodbye.
SPEAKER_02 (34:30):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
To have the closure that he needs.
And that means that I'm going tohold them until he can
participate and fully call forhim and understand.
And hopefully we'll be thatpoint in time where we can all
have more healing and moreclosure, but all together.
(34:53):
I didn't think that it would befair for me to get that and
Amber to get that without Coltonhaving that opportunity.
And at eight years old, hewasn't going to get that.
So I'm waiting.
And a lot of people got a lot tosay about that sometimes, but I
don't care.
I had to make decisions alongthe way to ultimately cultivate
(35:20):
my new existence.
SPEAKER_02 (35:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:22):
And, Part of that meant that choices that I made,
sometimes they weren't for thebest.
Sometimes it was just aboutsurviving emotionally,
physically, whatever.
And I was just doing the best Icould at certain times.
And then other times I was, Itransitioned into kind of fake
it until you make it.
(35:43):
And then ultimately my circle,one of the things I noticed, one
of the biggest changes after isthat my circle changed a lot.
Some of, some of the people Ilost because I decided that they
weren't the best people for mein those moments.
And that's okay.
People come and people go andthat's all right.
(36:05):
That doesn't make them badpeople.
It doesn't make me bad people.
It just means our time togetheris over.
And some people I lost and Iregret, you know, and I miss
those people and I wish somethings hadn't have happened, but
I have to be okay with thatbecause ultimately I lost them
because of the decisions that Imade.
(36:26):
But those decisions led me downthe path and put me where I was
supposed to be.
Right.
And I'm comfortable with that.
I might be sad about the loss ofthose people, but I'm
comfortable with it.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (36:42):
And I know we talked a little bit about your faith in
this.
So I'm just curious, as you weretrying to survive, Where did God
meet you in your grief or didyou wrestle with him a little?
SPEAKER_01 (36:54):
Oh man, I wrestled bad.
I was angry.
I don't just mean a little bitangry.
I mean, I was really angry.
I would say that my thing kindof cracked and then built back
so slowly over time.
It took me, it took perspectiveand time and distance for me to
(37:18):
be able to see his work.
And I feel like my faith isstronger now, but looking back,
I definitely fought and wrestledtrying to understand how this
could be my path.
Why is this my path?
Why is this on me?
But I know now that he onlygives us what we can handle.
(37:40):
He places us where we'resupposed to be when we're
supposed to be there.
And that faith is just that wecan't, we can't see it.
We can't touch it.
But you have to believe that heleads us where we belong and
that all of these things that weendure or encounter or overcome
(38:00):
give us tools that we take withus into life and that it's going
to help us grow so that when weencounter this next phase of his
plan, we're going to haveeverything we need to be
successful.
And that growth doesn't alwaysfeel good, look good, or any of
that.
Right?
(38:20):
It's very painful.
It can be very painful.
I think attitude and just beingable to have faith that there's
a path for you that makes senseis important.
But in the beginning, it wasawful.
I mean, it was messy anddisastrous.
Like I went to church and satdown at our church and I didn't
even, I couldn't even make it tothe service.
(38:41):
I just cried and left.
I couldn't even go back to ourchurch.
Yeah.
It was painful.
It was hard.
SPEAKER_00 (38:51):
I imagine it was.
I don't think anybody listeningto all that you've been through
would say that that's notsomething that they wouldn't do
the same.
If you could go back to thatversion of yourself, because you
did have a shift, what would youwhisper to her?
SPEAKER_01 (39:08):
Okay, so I would probably say I would tell
myself, you won't feel like thisforever, right?
UNKNOWN (39:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (39:16):
That it's okay to be messy.
I really didn't want to lookmessy on the outside because I
felt a lot of judgment, a lot ofthings.
But it's OK.
It was OK to be messy.
And I would have told myselfit's OK to be a mess, to be a
disaster.
But this is my life and I don'thave to please everyone else
(39:40):
around me.
It's OK to make decisions for meand my son.
Yeah.
And I would have told me to givemyself a little more grace.
Judgment didn't just come fromother people.
And we do this all the time inour life.
We judge ourselves.
We are so hard on ourselves andthe world is ugly enough.
(40:01):
We don't need any more badjudgment.
Absolutely.
Plenty of that is coming fromoutside.
We need to give ourselves grace.
And I would have told myselfthat.
I also would say that I wasn'tdoing Ashley any disservice by
trying to find and create andcultivate a new life for myself
(40:23):
judgment from outside judgmentfrom myself at times I felt like
I wasn't allowed to move on butthe fact of the matter is I am
allowed to move on I am allowedto Move forward.
And I felt a lot of guiltassociated with moving on,
(40:44):
moving forward.
I did it anyways.
The dialogue was very, you know,was negative for me, myself, not
externally.
I didn't put that off on my kidsor anything, but just
internally, the way I spoke tomyself wasn't very nice because
I felt a lot of guilt.
And I didn't need to feelguilty.
Life moves on and I don't haveto stand still.
(41:07):
No.
I think those are all thingsthat I would have told myself at
the moment.
Yeah.
Letting go of what our dreamswere, what our life was, what
our plan was, was the hardest.
SPEAKER_02 (41:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
And we had a life that we planned together.
Like we knew where we were goingand it was hard to let go of
that.
So there was a part of me thatwanted to stand still and, And
live in the past.
And there was a part of me thatwanted to move on because it was
the right thing to do for me,for my son, and even for Ashley.
SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
Yeah, because you can't stay there.
No.
Life keeps going.
Yes.
You can't just stay there.
You just end up wallowing insomething that not even God
wants for you.
SPEAKER_01 (41:55):
Yes.
And I think Ashley...
Ashley watched his parents.
I'm not saying they waller intheir grief.
But one of the reasons whyAshley chose to be cremated was
not only did Ashley's sisterpass away, but her three
children passed away from agenetic disorder.
(42:17):
All three before the age offive.
So Ashley's parents haveexperienced an extreme amount of
loss.
They've lost two of theirchildren.
and three of theirgrandchildren.
So there's a lot of loss there.
And Ashley didn't want hisparents and his children to have
(42:39):
to go back to the cemetery andput flowers.
There's a lot of obligation thatcomes with that.
And he didn't want us toremember.
Some of the conversations we hadis, I don't want my kids to
remember the worst day of ourlives.
In that way, he wants us tocarry him on in a positive way
(43:01):
and talk about his funny storiesand his humor and all this great
stuff about him.
And that doesn't have to be doneat a cemetery, which is why I
chose to be cremated.
SPEAKER_00 (43:11):
I didn't know that his parents had lost the three
grandkids.
So that's the weight.
I really want to thank you forthis, Molly.
I know taking us through thishas been heavy and I know that I
feel the weight of it and I knowthe listeners and those will be
hearing your story will as well,but we'll just take a quick
breath for a moment because weknow that life has to shift and
(43:34):
move forward, right?
That's right.
We'll pause the conversationhere, but Molly's story doesn't
end with loss.
In part two, we talk about whatit means to rebuild, to love
again, and to live fully evenafter deep grief.
So leave your thoughts, take adeep breath, and get ready for
the next episode.
(43:55):
If this episode moved you,please share it with someone who
might need it and if you haven'talready, follow the show so that
part two shows up right in yourfeed.
While you're waiting, I'd be sograteful if you could leave a
review.
It really helps others discoverhidden chapters and hear stories
that matter.
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