A Mother's Day Letter to Ashley

Ashley,

My bright little green eyed girl. You are my beautiful strong and graceful princess. Imagining my life without you in it would be like imagining life without a smile and laughter. Having you as my daughter is what give my life meaning. I am so glad that God choose me to be your mom.

As we experience the ups and downs of your life with liver disease, we are only reminded of how much your love means to us. Your love keeps us fighting for your life. There is a reason why God helped you survive this disease beyond the statistics and we are looking forward to finding out the answer to God's plan for your life.

Ashley one of my favorite things to do with you is take you to dance classes, the time I have with you in the car alone is something I cherish. The conversations we have on those car rides are priceless. Sometimes our conversations are silly, sometimes they are serious talks about heaven, death and God but regardless of the topic, I am so glad that you want to share your thoughts and fears with me.

I love you baby girl.

Always XX OO,

Mommy

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Living through Dance

In just about six weeks Ashley will dance, not just any dance; she will be competing in a big regional dance competition by dancing her very first solo. It's completely amazing, seeing Ashley dance, watching her live through dance. When Ashley was born almost 11 1/2 years ago, I never ever thought, we never thought Ashley would live to dance much else do her first solo. I can't believe I am crying as I type this. I didn't think I would get emotional. It's just amazing! When I put her in dance at age 3, I did it because I knew I needed to stop sheltering her. She needed to be around other children. She needed to feel normal despite what is trying to zap the life out of her; despite her disease. Honestly I never thought Ashley would be a good dancer or even a great dancer, I just knew dancing was safe; it was the one activity the doctors felt didn't put Ashley's life at risk. Little did I know how much dancing did and still d...

ALF vs COTA - Loosing Sleep

What would keep a person up past 3:30 am? Decisions... As most of you know we have been using ALF (American Liver Foundation) for Ashley's Liver Transplant Fund. However, in the past year, we have found that ALF is not offering us what we need among a few other reasons which I will not blog about. When we opened Ashley's account with ALF we did so quickly after the death of my dad during Christmas 2006 and New Year 2007, we did not have time to research the best fundraising organizations. There are so many organizations out there from ALF , COTA , NTAF . But because of my dad's untimely death and because his dying wish was that friends, family, etc. donate to Ashley to help defray our medical costs, the first organization that came to mind was the American Liver Foundation. After all, Ashley does have a liver disease. Now, both my husband and I are wondering if we should have used COTA. We have also thought and inquired about opening up a local trust fund for Ashley. Howeve...

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Love For Ashley

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