In two days we go back to court to hear Joshua Scott plea guilty to all charges in the deaths of Ashleigh, Patience & Chad. I pray he will not change his mind. I'm trying not to have my hopes up for an end to this part of the tragedy only to have it taken away at the last minute. The range of emotions I feel is unexplainable. It’s true what they say. The pain of losing a child is a hurt like no other. A little over One year later, I’ve yet to find the words to convey the enormity of the gaping, ragged hole that tore open inside of me when my child breathed her last. Since Ashleigh died, I have sometimes thought that I, too might simply stop breathing – that one day, with no warning, my heart might just stop beating and I’d keel over and that would be that. Because how can I be in this world without my daughter? How is that even possible? I don’t know yet. I’m not even close to figuring out how to be me without also being Ashleigh's mommy. I am not the same person I was before my daughter died. I am fundamentally different, and I know I always will be. No matter what’s going on around me, or how much joy I feel in my other child, or in my husband, family or friends, I now carry a tight, jagged coil of hurt inside of me all the time, and it’s hard to imagine that anything will ever make the raw void that I now feel any better.
Joshua Scott excepting life in prison will not bring back my Ashleigh and her baby. Seeking the death penalty won't bring them back either. The last few days I've become keenly aware that for so many during the next month after sentencing is over, there will be a type of closure for them and not for me. It is the nightmare I will never wake up from all of my living days. Without my belief that I will be with my daughter again nothing would make me get out of bed to function. Only God can give me back what I have lost. Not a guilty plea, not another's life and not the courts. I just don't feel the comfort I thought I would gain by the end of the trial. I miss you Ashleigh, now more than ever!
Joshua Scott excepting life in prison will not bring back my Ashleigh and her baby. Seeking the death penalty won't bring them back either. The last few days I've become keenly aware that for so many during the next month after sentencing is over, there will be a type of closure for them and not for me. It is the nightmare I will never wake up from all of my living days. Without my belief that I will be with my daughter again nothing would make me get out of bed to function. Only God can give me back what I have lost. Not a guilty plea, not another's life and not the courts. I just don't feel the comfort I thought I would gain by the end of the trial. I miss you Ashleigh, now more than ever!
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