Ashton ~ age 7 with brother Jacob

I was at an appointment today where a Beverly Hillbillies rerun was showing. I watched it til the end where they wave and wave and keep waving. Can you picture that? It brought back one of the funnest memories of a 7 year old boy, standing out on the porch waving to his dad as he drove off to work or anyone in the family who was driving away from the house. He would wave and wave and keep waving happily until the car was out of sight, just like at the end of the Beverly Hillbillies show. I can’t keep a smile off my face as I picture that. Wish we had a picture of it. We don’t…. but the memory is so vivid and real and sweet, I can see him out on that porch it as if it happened yesterday. He was a happy boy then.

Sometimes, at the beginning of this journey, I felt close to Ashton and could feel him near. Now, he seems so far away, unreachable…. like in the picture at the top of the blog… where he’s sitting on a far away volcanic rock in Fiji by the sea. The place that he loved. I chose that picture for the blog because it’s beautiful, it’s Fiji,  and because it typifies our relationship with him now. We don’t have tangible access to him anymore. He is off in the distance…so far away. Yes, unreachable… but because he was so much a part of our life for 21 years, his influence is still here, somehow. We can picture him, and, at times, feel his influence….but he’s not with us anymore. I know his spirit lives on in another realm and we will see and know him again. I believe that.

It leads me to ponder on my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I can’t see him, or physically touch him, but I know he’s there, somehow. I feel his influence in my life. I feel that love He has for me as I experience the deep, absorbing, love-filled grief for Ashton. I see and feel His love in my family relationships and friendships. He is not here on earth with me, but He is large and living… in His realm. I believe that.

I’ve heard this recited at many funerals, quite often by my husband. He and I had no idea it would mean so much to us so soon in our life.

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And such is dying.   ~   Henry Van Dyke

I love the thought that other eyes, of those who love him,  were there watching Ashton come. I love the thought of other voices, shouting and happy, for his arrival. Maybe he turned back and waved and waved and waved….one last time to us…. at his arrival there. I love that thought too.

Written by Faye

Ashton ~ Senior Picture

Though I really try to look for and feel God’s light in my life, sometimes in my grief, it’s not there all the time. I do have moments, afternoons and blocks of time where it’s hard to see and feel that light.  I am grateful for the harder times in my life that have taught me to look for light. It is a blessing to me now… now that I am experiencing THE hardest time in my life…that I am already in the habit.

I saw some ‘light’ the other day coming back home from my walk.

We usually have zinnias that come up in our planters every summer. All I have to do is turn on the watering system and they grow. Easy. They reseed themselves every year. Easy… I love easy. Well… I didn’t even turn on the watering system this year. All I had to do was walk out and turn it on. I just didn’t do it. We had no zinnias this summer. But… on the way home from my walk, I noticed some zinnias growing by the garbage dumpster. I didn’t plant them. They just came up. Nobody watered them.  They wanted to grow there and, by golly, they did. It was a little bright, pink spot in my day…..some ‘light’ to let me know that God has not forgotten me and what makes me happy. I think it’s interesting that they grew right beside our garbage dumpster. What a contrast. Black, trashy, smelly stuff and then………..pink flowers. Light…. right next to darkness.

Light CAN be found…….even in the darkest of moments, afternoons and blocks of time.

God and His creations, His influence and His light are all around me. I just need to keep looking for it.

Written by Faye

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Ashton Mayberry ~ Age 2 ~ His sister bathed him!

I went to lunch with one of my sisters in Thatcher and she told me, “Ashton is free. He doesn’t have to deal with his body any more. This life is all about the body.”

I’ve thought a lot about that last sentence of hers and it’s so true. This body we have is all consuming for us. Much of what we do on this earth is taking care of our bodies. We feed it, water it, wash it, cover it, work it, rest it, exercise it, and do our best to keep it feeling well. Big bodies take care of little bodies.

This life IS all about the body.

When Ashton was born, April 30, 1992, he had to stay in the hospital for a few days because of jaundice. It was hard for me to leave him there while I went home. I finally got to bring that little body  home on my birthday, May 4th. He was my birthday present.  I took care of that little body for a long time.  So, when Ashton died, I still felt very responsible for that bigger body. I stayed with him until my dad came to pick him up. Carter and I helped  to load him in the van. We went down to the mortuary and helped unload him. I was so glad my dad was going to be the one taking responsibility for him. It would have been very hard to leave him with someone else. My dad told me later that in all his years in his profession, he has never had a family member participate in loading the body of their loved one on the stretcher. I’m including that here, not because I am anyone special. All I knew, at the time, is that I had a huge need to be sure his body was taken care of. He was MY boy and my mother instinct was running at full force. I was like a lioness protecting her cub, and I was responsible for him as long as he was on this earth.

One of the first things I missed the most when Ashton was gone was that body. I was used to him sitting at my table, laying on my couch, sitting at my computer, laying in his bed. I missed the spirit that lived in his body, the one that smiled at me, ate my food, sat by me in church, joked with his brothers, and played with his nieces and nephews. I missed touching him and rubbing his head while telling him good night before going to bed. I still do.

I believe that we lived as spirits before we came to this earth. I believe that as we came to this earth our spirits were given a body to dwell in.  I believe this body we have been given is a gift from God. We are responsible to take care of it the best way we know how. I did my best to help take care of Ashton’s body…my very best.

Written by Faye.

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Jacob, Faye, Carter & Ashton Mayberry ~ Texas Canyon ~ 2008

When we were driving recently, I noticed the corner post to two fences that attached to it at ninety-degree angles. Over the years, some of the soil around that concrete base had been washed away, probably by water from heavy rainstorms that had drained right next to the base. The corner post was leaning inward slightly, being pulled by the weight and tension of the two fences.

When I saw that corner post, I then mentally contrasted it with the corner posts that Grandpa Mayberry installed on his farm. One of those posts had a concrete base that was about three feet long by three feet wide by three feet deep. I know that because we had to move it to another location because of fence line changes. That concrete base was massive! We had to move it with a tractor and chains!

Why did Grandpa go to such great lengths to make such a massive concrete base to his corner posts? My guess is that he had either seen or experienced himself a corner post like the one I saw while driving that didn’t hold up to the weight and tension from the fences that attached to it. Grandpa probably said to himself something like, “That will never happen again. It is worth the extra effort now to make a strong foundation for this corner post — so I don’t have to worry about its stability when it is under the weight and tension from the fences attached to it.”

Ashton’s suicide on January 28, 2014 is the biggest “storm” I have ever faced. Thomas S. Monson often quotes the statement, “When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.” This is what has been helpful for me to withstand this storm:

The Book of Mormon prophet, Helaman, taught his sons, “[…Remember], remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, [and I might add when life shall send forth its mighty winds] yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Helaman 5:12)

Christ taught his disciples, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)

Much like Grandpa’s corner posts, when the storms in my life have hit me, I’ve had to reflect on the foundation upon which my life is built. That foundation is my belief and hope in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, who has taken upon Himself my pains, sins and sorrows. I believe with all my heart that He did that for me because of His love for me. I love Him for that.

My quest is to strengthen my foundation in the “rock” of our Savior and His Atonement. As I do so, I will be like Grandpa’s corner posts. I will be able to withstand the storms, weights and tensions of life — whatever they may be.

Written by Carter

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Ashton ~ age 2

I learned something today. Something I kinda already knew. I just needed to see it written down to remember that I knew it. I’m glad to be reminded. This is what reminded me:

“You didn’t choose for your loved one to die. No one offered you a choice. You only  get to choose what to do with what has happened. We may choose to die when they die. Or we may choose to live, crippled. We may shuffle about as though all the color has been drained from our world – that is surely the way it feels. Or, we may accept what has happened and move beyond this present despair to a hope-filled life with meaning and purpose.”

“No one can make that choice for you. No one can or should rush you. It takes a long while, this business of moving beyond the pain. On the way you will want to be kind to yourself.”     Living After Suicide, Sue Holtkamp, Ph.D.

Wish I could list all the ways it says to be kind to yourself. There’s 20 of them. Here’s the ones that caught my attention:

– Accept nature’s slow, sure, stuttering process of healing (Love that stuttering word)

– Give yourself massive doses of restful relaxation and routine busyness. (I can do better at the restful relaxation part)

– Surround yourself with life-affirming things: plants, animals and friends. Take minute vacations from your pain to enjoy the wonder of these things.  (Never thought of minute vacations before. I’ll have to try that)

– Understand that sometimes your mind is a jumble. You seem gifted at forgetting things while sentence fragments and half-completed ideas compete for space in your mind. Slow down, give yourself a break and know that this will pass. (Yep, sounds like my brain.)

-“Cut and run” from people who want to tell how you should be feeling or thinking or behaving. There’s an excellent chance they don’t really know. ( I know people this has happened to but it hasn’t happened with me. I have THE most supportive people around me)

-Expect setbacks. Grief doesn’t move in a linear fashion. (See #1, stuttering)

-Accept the reality that you will never be as you were, but that life can be good again. (I have great HOPE that this will happen)

-Refuse to settle for just surviving. Choose to bring from this tragedy a lasting memorial to your beloved. A life well-lived can serve as that memorial. (I REFUSE to settle for just surviving!)

Carter and I have come to the realization that we have to DELIBERATELY CHOOSE to become better, or it won’t happen.

My default response to this pain and heartache is to curl up in a ball, not talk to anyone and not go anywhere.

But…..I HAVE A CHOICE….. and despite this setback, despite Ashton’s absence, despite this pain that I feel…. I choose to live a hope-filled life with meaning and purpose. With Christ’s healing gift, with God’s love and the guidance of His Holy Spirit…. I will do it !

Written by Faye

Faye & Ashton ~ August 2013

I love Ashton. I miss him. But there is something humbling about having a front row seat in watching a mother’s love in action as Faye grieves Ashton’s death.

Ashton with siblings and Carter at the Tucson airport when he returned from his mission.

Yes, I’ve been angry. I tried not to be. I didn’t want to be. I’m not an angry person. I’m not. But, I have to admit… I have been angry. I was deep, down depressed for about a week before a sweet friend helped me realize what was going on.

I was angry at Ashton. I was angry that he left us. I felt guilty that I was angry. I tried to suppress it. How ridiculous to be angry at him. He was ill. He was not accountable. But…I can’t deny it…I was angry at him.

I’ve learned that suppressing anger is toxic. My body needed to feel that anger and I wouldn’t let it.  I wrote the following on October 24, 2014. I wasn’t going to post it. I didn’t want anyone to see my anger. I write a lot of things I don’t post. I feel like I should now. I was surprised at myself, that I got so angry.

“Another hard day.  What’s going on? Usually when I write, I feel better, but I’m not today. I’ve been so sad…thinking of how bad Ashton must have felt to do that. He couldn’t even tell us. I should have known.  He should have told us. I’m his mom… he should have told me. Families tell each other when things are hard!  ASH!!!  All you had to do was tell me or dad or Jordan or SOMEONE! How hard can it be????”

“I MISS YOU SO MUCH!!! You are a part of our family! You should be here with us! Not somewhere where I can’t ever see you or hear you or touch you ever again in this life!!!!!  How can I ever live without you here???? How will our family ever go on without you here? We are trying… we are… but it is really HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Are you sad too Ash? Do you miss us like we miss you? Is it hard for you to see us so sad? Are you having a hard time being away from us? Is someone there to comfort you? Do you have family and friends there helping you like we have here? Ohhh….I hope so….”

I’ve learned that anger can be a normal part of grieving for some people. I didn’t think it would be for me…. but it has been.

“Anger targeting the deceased may frighten you. It shouldn’t. It is very natural and extremely common. Regardless of the circumstances or the reasons for his emotional despair, the deceased — in solitude, without consulting you — made a choice. And now you get to live with the consequences. That’s enough to make anyone angry. Denying the anger won’t work. You’ll just prolong it. It is absolutely essential to meet the twin emotions of anger and guilt head-on, to do battle with them until they’re exhausted, and then you can move on.”      ~    Living After Suicide by Sue Holtkamp, Ph.D.

Well… I’ve gone to battle with my anger. I own it and I hope it is exhausted.

How could I ever do this alone? With good people around me to help me heal and teach me, and with my Heavenly Father cheering me on…. I will make it.

Written by Faye

Sadie Ashton Evans ~ 7 months old

Yesterday, Faye and I attended the Phoenix Temple Open House — for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We drove in “the beast” — nickname for the big van owned by Jonathan and Candace Evans (our son-in-law and daughter). Rubi and Jordan (daughter-in-law and son) joined us in Tucson. All five of the Evans’ children were in the van, also. Sweet, chunky, kissable, 7 month-old Sadie did not enjoy being in her car seat for that LONG trip. She is becoming increasingly mobile and I think didn’t like being strapped down for that long! The other kids did pretty well, despite the occasional, “He’s bugging me!” type of inevitable irritations that come from kids being on a long trip.

Ashton Mayberry ~ Age 7

As I read through the comments on Facebook this morning, I was touched by how many people are reading and commenting on our posts that we don’t even know: 9223 people were “reached” this last week. Wow! The words of the song, “Rhinestone Cowboy” spontaneously came to my mind, “…getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know!” (but no offers coming over the phone :)) I confess that this is new for me — with so many people who know our story — but there appears to be a need for what we are writing. Thank you in advance for reading, liking, commenting and sharing! You may not know, either, who might be touched by your efforts to do so.

Just Hug Me

By Candace (Mayberry) Evans

You see me in person
Going about my day.
Life goes on even after tragedy.
“How are you doing?”
You ask, really wanting to know.
I feel the heaviness always;
Don’t want to burden anyone.
“I’m doing okay.”
I really am. But I’m not, too.
You sense my unseen sorrow.
“Mourn with those that mourn:”***
You want to do this for me.
Words seem inadequate
And they are.

So just hug me,
No words necessary.
“Can I hug you?”
If you must speak aloud.
Linger in the embrace,
I feel you say
“I’m sorry. I care.”
Unspoken words drive deep.
Hug the words of your heart to me,
Absorb a piece of my sorrow.
My return embrace,
Shoulders relaxing,
A little grief freed, says,
“You care…you remember. Thank you.”

***Mosiah 18:9, The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ

Jordan, Ashton & Jacob Mayberry