Ashley Nicole Cassell

Last Friday, 12/16/11, was the one-year anniversary of a dear friend's passing out of this life. She had incredible faith and perseverance in the midst of pain and suffering. Although her body was frail, her heart and spirit were vibrant and full of energy. She had numerous health problems since birth, many caused by a very weak immune system. All the time I knew her she was confined in a wheelchair. She had a cane and could walk and stand for short periods of time. Her health fluctuated all the time and she was in the hospital many times.

But this post isn't about the weakness of my friend's body. This post is about her showing us that life is worth living - even when nothing makes sense, our world falls around us, and pain seems a constant part of life.

Ashley loved to write and receive letters, even in this digital age. She said there was just something special about writing a letter and getting a letter someone wrote. I had the privilege to trade letters with her for three or four years before she died. Even when she couldn't write due to medication issues, she would type them and print them out to send to me and others. What struck me most, aside from her patient endurance, was her sense of hope.

I know few people who have such extreme hope. Through her trials and pain and setbacks, she held onto the joy and hopefulness that caused her to be such a light to all of us. It was incredible. She was so optimistic about the future, whether the possibility that she could walk with RGO's and enough practice, or my upcoming graduation and job hunt. Although her future was cut short by a bout of pneumonia she couldn't overcome, her optimism concerning life itself always amazed me. And continues to. When I get weighed down by the troubles in my life, I remember my friend Ashley. One of the quotes from her letters that comes to mind is from Viktor Frankl, a man who endured Nazi concentration camps and concluded that even in the worst situations, life is still potentially meaningful; so even suffering can have meaning. "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."

I wish you could have known her. I don't know where you stand on the whole "afterlife" thing, but I believe my friend is finally at peace, free from the physical and emotional pain that showed up each day for her. And I can't wait to take a walk with her one day. One of her last statuses was an anonymous quotation, "Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God."