On Life.
           
Beyond being gorgeous, funny, and defiantly vivacious, Ashley Brear was nearly angelic.  That seems to be consensus from the entries in her website’s guestbook, visited over 87,000 times since she started writing the on-line journal a year ago.  There in an obvious theme in these tributes to her life: reoccurring images of Ashley dancing with angels, of Ashley’s memory being strong, and of her presence still being felt.  There is something very honest and very real about the grief and the loss that is expressed in those words, but there is also a sense of something much more powerful: evidence of a life so incredible that it has touched and transformed literally thousands of others.  This is no exaggeration, no sappy hindsight reflection.  It has changed me.

You knew it when you met her, and if you ever have, you know it right now.  Perhaps you can feel tingles in your spine, tears in your eyes, or that tightness in your chest of pain and sorrow.  Ashley had a way with people, a way of speaking and of listening and of being that changed them.  Which makes the grief deeper, and the loss harder to bear.  Fortunately, it also makes the memory more vivid, and the lessons more profound.  Which is what I mean when I say that knowing Ashley was transformative.  She so truly affected not just our words and actions, which alone is remarkable, but also our subconscious understanding of our own lives, what we might call our faith, the very core of our being. 

And so we are different because of it.  But not all different in the same way.  Differently changed by the same incredible life. 

I feel more alive.  Most of the time.  I think of life not as something you either have or don’t have, but as something you choose to experience and share a certain amount of.  I think of a banner at the Parade of the Lost Souls that read “Awake the Living”, and I think of the joy and of the love that Ashley radiated as she danced in Upper Jubilee and at her Gala and everywhere else.  I think about how true it is that some people live more in twenty-two years than others do in ninety.  I think about the Harold Whitman quote that reads, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” And I think I’d like to surround myself with more people who are alive.  And I think that I’d like to choose to live more, more often. 

I also think more about beauty.  Not in an obvious and superficial way, but the kind of beauty that is contagious, the kind of beauty that you can’t fake and that you can’t lose.  The kind of beauty that Ashley held, even as a shy-ish teenager, and that became even more evident as her body became sick.  The kind of beauty that truly is a reflection of joy.  And the graffiti on the washroom wall of the coffee shop that I’m sitting in exclaims that, “beauty multiplies unconditionally”, and I think of an old song singing that, “maybe if we are surrounded by beauty, then one day we will become what we see”.  I think of beautiful places like the Naramata Chapel, and Lynn Canyon, and views of the mountains, and cherry blossom season.  And beautiful people I know, and the beautiful things that they do.  The way they inspire just by being.  I think of how easy it is to find beauty when you look for it.  I think that Ashley defined beauty, and redefined it again and again.  And I like that.  I think that I’d like to look for beauty more often, to let it become me.  And I think that I’d like to live beautifully.

And then I think of grace and of gentleness.  The need to be gentle with each other and with ourselves.  I think of how grateful I am for the people who have held my hand or rubbed my back in the past two and a half weeks, in the past two and a half years.  And the people who have done the same for others, and for themselves.  I think of humility.  And of course I think of Ashley.  I think of her generosity, her giving of herself.  And I think of the whole Brear family’s generosity.  And I am beyond inspired, I am reminded of what it’s all about.  I’d like to label it faith.  I am more faith-full.

Calling it incredible doesn’t seem like enough.  Being in awe is a start.  Ashley’s life transformed mine, and I know that I’m not the only one.  And thus, her life is not gone, but broken into colorful pieces that are embedded in each of us, the most breathtaking mosaic imaginable.  In a very real way, her life has become ours.  And in a very tangible sense, she is reflected in how we speak, how we interact, how we laugh and how we dance.  And we could never get rid of her.  Even if we tried.  Our dear Ashley Brear has changed our lives.  Alleluia.