Ever Singing For Joy

Mobility is a term often used to indicate the ability to move or rather the relative ease associated with moving.  A lack of it would mean that something is resistant to motion.  Think of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz before he got the oil can and loosened up his joints.  I spent the better part of the Summer months being immobilized.  I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, especially given all that I was trying to process at the time.  With Ash passing away in May, those first three months were a chaotic storm of trying to figure out my head from a hole in the ground.  As time has continued forward, I've had to navigate a lot of new things.  A lot of firsts.  A lot of 'how-to' moments as a single parent.  There have been so many moments I wish I could've had my bride by my side to ask what she thought.  But... here I am...  negotiating the days solo.  I, like everyone else, definitely have good and bad days.  I...

The day started at 10° today.  Frigid.  Being one to love 'fun' experiences, I stepped outside for a minute.  It was absolutely one of the coldest environments I've been in in recent memories.  A free session of cryotherapy.  In all seriousness though, it was a moment of feeling.  A genuine moment to feel pain, thrill and a spur of questioning 'why am I doing this?'.  I both enjoyed the moment and, yet, at the same time couldn't wait to get back inside. Why start with a story about what I did this morning?  Simply put, I'm finding that it's a good analogy for life right now.  I go from moments of just doing the same old, same old to seeking an abrupt change/desire to do something exhilarating.  Am I successful at finding those things? No, not especially; but the desire is present all the same.  I've been told a hundred times (reading back through parts of this and this is definitely hyperbole, it's more like twenty) that I need to u...

First things first: I want to take a minute to talk about how God has been so faithful (as if He could be anything less than this, but perhaps in His graciousness He is allowing me to see it) to carry my weary head/heart through these past six and a half months.  Really, I genuinely cannot fathom how it is anything other than Him physically picking up my head to move me (and the girls) forward.  I wish it was easy to draw a graph in this blog because I could tell a story of my weakness and God's merciful strength with a graph right now.  Collectively, we are loved more than we know, blessed beyond what we deserve and even still what He is doing for our good is a testament to His ever increasing Glory.  As Winter is beginning to show signs of approaching, so too have my moods/emotions/attitudes started to grow colder and crave more solitude.  I think I would be content to hibernate and just emerge months later to pick up where I left off.  Yet, that's not ho...

So, I sat down to write a post because today is a milestone moment... at least I thought it would be.   Turns out it's just another day without my bride.  Six months. Six, long and thick months.  Let me set the stage before I keep writing on...  In a short summary of the past six months, I'd describe them this way: Month 1 - A whirlwind of a month that can only be described as 'Chaos made manifest'.  I honestly don't remember much of this month.  Aside from the final moments with Ash and a majority of the paperwork/funeral itself, I couldn't tell you anything else that happened during this period. Month 2 - A bit of a rinse and repeat of Month 2, except this is when reality started to hit a little more.  External help began to curtail, the phone calls and texts diminished and it was full on Summer.  There was no established routine and my kids has variable schedules.  Loneliness started to peek its head in the door at times, but it was o...

Working through this season is proving to be more challenging than I thought it would be. With no real understanding of what this life would look like once Ashley died, I can safely say I underestimated my emotional resiliency. My writing (read as: therapy) instances are increasing.  In the chaos of the day-to-day operations, it's becoming my primary outlet to think, process and then expunge from inside of my head.  There are fewer opportunities to gather together with others.  There are even fewer opportunities to break away for solitude/retreat. Structuring my thoughts on paper (or the computer)  is starting to feel like a normal activity again.  So, in the absence of anyone to decompress with... writing more frequently will be the foreseeable mode of release. Suffering/Grief/Pain/Sadness... whatever you want to label it as, it's exhausting. It creates a weariness that I'd rather not hold on to. Maybe it's the season change or reality continuing to set in, but...

I don't know why I've done this in recent days, but I've found myself just replaying those last few months of Ash's time here over and over.  Maybe it's my way of processing and working through some tough moments, but that mental roller coaster usually unfolds into emotional turbulence. At first, I readily pushed back against those memories when they started to intrude (because, well, they are generally sorrowful).  Though, as I thought through all of it, I kept coming back to the fact that there were some really sweet moments in those days.  The Lord was gracious to give us that time.  The Lord was gracious to give us moments together, to share, and retrospectively... He was giving us more opportunities to make memories that I now carry forward.  As I've spent time just reading stories of other widows and widowers, especially ones who lost their spouse to cancer and went through a long, arduous journey... I see SO MUCH of our story in theirs.  Certainly, t...

I haven’t written and published anything since the days following Ash’s funeral. (The weight even writing the latter half of that sentence still brings a flurry of emotions) The absence of writing out my thoughts is not for lack of content to document and record; it’s out of motivation.   I’ve said, often, to those who have asked ‘How I’m doing?’ that I’m putting one foot in front of another and letting the muscles move, but that one of the biggest struggles I’m finding in general is motivation to do anything outside of the bare necessity.   There is a bit of a vicious cycle involved with the lack of motivation and being productive in particular areas of life that require motivation. The lack of motivation produces anxiety about not getting things done and then not getting things done leads to this ‘sense of defeat’.   This was REALLY bad for the first couple of months following Ash’s death.   REALLY bad.   It does seem that these past few weeks have been a bit ...

Much the same as me posting the obituary in the previous post.  I'm posting a draft of the eulogy here.  Though I made some last minute changes on the stage and rearranged how I presented some of the address, this is the shell of what I said about my bride.  And yes... I wrote out the thank you  comments   and the hello/goodbye statements.  I relegated myself to reading this as much as possible and not trying to orate from memory.  Kept the emotions somewhat in check and provided an opportunity to say what I wanted to say and not leave something out.  I wanted to post it for record keeping purposes more than anything.  Should the day come where my girls come back and read this, I want them to see it without having to search too hard. ========= Good Morning.   Thank you for being here.   Today is certainly one I’ll remember. If for nothing else then to see a room of people for which Ashley made an impression.  There’s certainly...

For the purposes of record keeping and to keep those up to date on things that don't have social media otherwise... I'm posting a copy of Ashley obituary. I'll also post a copy of the eulogy I delivered at the memorial service in a separate post. ======== Ashley O’Sullivan Huffstutler was born August 11, 1987 to Mary and John L O’Sullivan, Jr. in Longview Texas. On May 14, 2022, Ashley met her Lord after a courageous battle with brain cancer.  x Ashley attended Pine Tree High School in Longview where she graduated in 2006. She pursued a double major in Christian Studies and Sociology at Ouachita Baptist University where she graduated in 2009. On January 2, 2010, Ashley married her best friend and the love of her life, David Huffstutler. In 2011, they moved to Hoover, Alabama to allow Ashley to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham to participate in their Physical Therapy program. In 2014, Ashley, graduated with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Her passion was pe...

Today. May 14, 2022. A day that'll be etched into my memory for the rest of my life. It's the day my wife died. It's the day that holds moments that hurt worse than anything I've felt before. It's also the day that has brought some of the greatest episodes of hope I've ever seen. The past 72 hours have been some of the most rigorous as a caretaker.  These day have reminded me so very much of where we began this journey four and a half years ago in the ICU at UAB after her surgery, though, with one major difference... during those days I prayed earnestly for my wife to be saved and to recover.  These past few days have been filled with nothing but prayers of thankfulness and for mercy. I didn't sleep Thursday into Friday.  Ash required medications every hour and she was already showing signs of getting ready to leave her earthly body.  So aside from 15 minutes here and 20 minutes there... I embraced my former collegiate life and pulled an all-nighter. (Defini...

 This one won't be a terribly long update and it will certainly be a jumbled mess of how Ash is doing and some of my random thoughts interjected.  Just wanted to provide some insight as to where we're at. Over the course of the past 12 days, Ash has continued on her steady decline.  We started tapering off some of her medications that were essentially supplemental and not vital to continued operations.  We changed the mode by which some of those medications were taken (i.e. crushed, mixed, etc.).  This worked well for a few days.  In fact, everything we've adjusted over the past two weeks has worked well for a day or two before we had to continue making adjustments. The most significant (until tonight; more on that in a minute) decline has come in the form of decreased water intake.  She takes in 2-3 ounces of water a day.  This has been the case for the past 5-6 days.  We know that's not sustainable, and will likely be one of the key culprit...

It's been several weeks since I've actually published an update on Ashley.  The truth is, I had written an entire update nearl y two weeks ago, but I hadn't fully proofed it and the daily grind got in the way of actually getting it pushed out.  If you'd have seen the update then, you'd know that two weeks ago we were starting to decline even further.   Actually, I'll just copy and paste a large chunk of what I had written for some insight into how life has been recently: It's hard to know what is worthwhile to share and what are the minor nuances of the day to day that are likely just use as caretakers being extra sensitive to. The general idea, though, is that Ash is declining.  If you look at it week over week, we are noticeably further along the path than we were. If you want some candor, this part of the journey is absolutely the worst (to date).  Originally, there was something so raw about the initial diagnosis that it was a tough few days/weeks to pr...