Ever Singing For Joy

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 something to be said for that.   Ashley was something

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 culprits in what's to come. She