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...

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...

I am convinced that one of the toughest parts of terminal cancer is the last leg of the journey.  Grief, frustration, lamenting, the unknown, failing physical health, cognitive decline... NONE of these are strangers these days.  To that end, though, neither is grace, patience, gentleness, understanding and Hope. There is a great deal of struggle to write part of this post in a way that doesn't come across as cold or without emotion.  To be honest though, that's the world I live in at the moment.  We'll call this a season of survival on my part; the colors of emotion are muted and an intentional push to handle the tasks set in front of me.  Internally, I feel like I've adopted the phrase, 'Work the Problem' as a daily credo for it seems that each day or set of days bring with it new sets of challenges. I mentioned it earlier, the last leg of this journey is going to be remembered as the toughest of the entire process, at least on my end.  Until now, I've bee...

The calm before the storm . I have heard that phrase countless times before.  I don't know if I've ever experienced that phrase in such a palpable way as I have over the past week. What you'll find in this post is going to be straight to the point, not a lot of analysis or commentary; plenty of time for that later... I promise (I've mentioned a few times in earlier post that writing these posts serves as a bit of therapy for me and I can guarantee that in the coming days there's going to be a need for therapy). Since the last post, Ashley's health has continued its decline.  We've had some stumbles and trips and one significant fall this past Sunday.  Words come and go (heavier emphasis on the 'go').  Weakness in movement is growing more common.  Understanding logic and typical actions are increasingly more difficult. Though, there is a slight feel of maybe slowing the descent of decline in the past 24 hours (meaning, it's been relatively uneven...