This Is Me

Hi. I'm Ashley Hayball. 

By all accounts, I led a fairly typical life up until 2022. 

I married a wonderful man in 2004. We had 2 splendid kids. I taught school and felt strongly it was my God-given purpose. 

Then cancer arrived...fast & furious.

Geoff- my husband- was dealt a crap hand and diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer on June 8, 2022. He would be dead 65 days later, after the bravest & most humble acceptance of 4 rounds of horrific chemotherapy. 

The bubble of invincibility that was our life simply vanished. I was terrified. Alone. And had never felt more hopeless.

I felt immediately sliced in half and sent back into the world. I had absolutely no idea how to survive a loss that resembled a massive tear in the fabric of the universe.

So...I went in search of a safety net.

That net resembled other women rowing the same crappy boat I was. Women thrust into solo parenting. Women widowed & figuring it out. Women who would eventually teach me to look for light in the cracks. Teach me to let go of who I used to be because she died, too. 

Thank God for Instagram. Those first months are still a complete fog. I have very spotty memories of the day to day...likely a protective veil because really- the pain is so huge it's enough to consume you whole. But I somehow built a web of women who were brushing their teeth, feeding their children, stocking the fridge and living through the unimaginable. They saved me in those early days, and I'm not sure I ever properly thanked them.

I instinctively knew in those raw, early days what I needed to survive.

But I didn't. Not really.

As I glance over my shoulder- 15 months later- I can so clearly see the dots connect. It's impossible to know it when all you are doing is focusing on the next breath. The next minute. The next decision.

Time, gobs of faith, and a handful of women who were strangers months prior...they saved me. I'd like to think we saved each other through the hundreds of desperate text messages and tear-soaked phone calls. I believe now that loneliness is the hardest emotion to sit with. I can't tell you how many times I felt like the only woman in the world shouldering a life I never asked for. These women blurred the lines of loneliness. Knowing others were out in this vast ocean, rowing the same damn boat...it was morbidly comforting. 

15 months later, and it's still morbidly comforting. 

So...I am still Ashley Hayball. But I am no longer hopeless, alone, or terrified. My husband's death is proving to be the catalyst of my lifetime, and I refuse to lay down & surrender to my feelings. 

Because I am not my feelings. 

It is my hope to use what has happened to my children & me to help others...because I'm pretty sure that's the living definition of healing. Writing has always been my jam, and it's been a tool I've used almost every day to wade through gut-wrenching emotions to realize this:

I love who I am becoming. I just hate the cost of admission.

Keep going.