As a person, Ashley was always the most giving, kind, and accepting person. So much so that, seemingly, she couldn't take a joke... kinda. You see, it was her compassion that savaged my erstwhile 'deviant' utterances; yet she always knew I was full of shit: she could spot a liar a mile away. Though, perhaps that vision was limited to the 'other' rather than herself. I believe this can be exemplified in her love of "Letterkenny": a show in which its characters lie their flaws bare but not without their penchant for learning. It his here that Ashley always, up until a certain point, beat the hell out of me: she saw compassion and understanding in a context which others, myself, at the time, included, could not conceive it. She saw love. Possibly, we actually saw the same thing. We would often discuss the perfection that was "that last episode of "Six Feet Under." I think we saw things in the same light, though I was much more crass: she'd say "notsogood" where I'd take a more "c-flavoured" tone (or word). Still, we understood one another. This is something any person would be lucky to feel with a kindred spirit: a complete, unspoken symbiosis. In that space, there is no language, save the language of one you can simply 'be' with. Someone you can laugh with. Someone you can cry with. Someone you can live and die with (I go on; you don't; I lived with you; parts of me (more than you know) died with you). A place and a space in which none matters: not even the two of us. Time and noise and silence accept us. But time is time (11 years never did us good), and noise is something we all must hear, as is silence. The truth is we are silence and noise and time. Time is what you gave us; noise is what I hear always in the back of my head, saying "you are the best; you've got this (something you said to me in both the best and worst of times); silence is what I hear in your absence. Though I will make noise in the silence: you were there; you are here. I will scream it through time as I hear it: "You are worth it. You got this, duuuuude." You will live on in noise as I scream your name; you will live on in time as I speak of you: you will not be silenced. Ashley. Despite your leaving as abruptly as any character in "Six Feet Under," you left myself (and others, I'm sure) with the knowledge that we must accept one as they are: much like "Letterkenney" shows us in such crass terms. Rest well, dear.
I tried to write the above in a way Ashley might have liked. She was alway more deep into literature than I ever was (or will be). I think she'd like it. I think it speaks to her personally.
The loss is shattering. If you know of anyone you love (or otherwise) in need of relevant services, contact them immediately. No one should fight alone.
