It was June 2, 2016. Ashley Grimm was traveling with her 6 children in the car and was in a horrific accident.
Recently, Ashley took to Facebook to share her side of the story and offers some emotional advice to the world.
Ashley tells us of the story of her sweet son and his “superhero” powers. He saw every buckle as a superhero challenge and he knew he was a superhero because he was always able to undo every buckle.
She knew of his love of unbuckling his seat belt and would often pull over to the side of the road to buckle him back up.
A rock in the middle of a curvy road on a mountainside sent the 13-passenger van that Ashley was driving down the side of the cliff, rolling, and her son was instantly gone, as he had already undone his seat belt.
What’s worse than the story is how the media turned her awful story into just another news story that the world could tear a part, “The readers commented the cruelest things about how horrible of a mother I was. How I deserved it. How my children should be taken from me.”
Fortunately, Ashley knows what a good mom she is and she has done things that most of us mothers have no experience with. She says,
“I have held my dead sons body in the middle of a highway while I rocked him and screamed – no ordered God to bring him back.
-I have chosen a funeral plot for my four year old boy as I contemplated jumping from the cliff the cemetery overlooks just so I could be where he is.
-I have purchased a 200 dollars superhero outfit for my son to wear as he decomposes in the earth.
-I have kissed a corpse over and over and wept as I traced over every feature of his ice cold face and held his still dimpled, but lifeless hands.
-I have slept in a cemetery just to try and take one more nap with him. I talk to the dirt. To the ground where he lies with his lovey blanket and his avengers outfit.”
And her advice?
“- maybe finishing broccoli at dinner isn’t as important as we might think. Watch how your children eat, soak in their hatred for corn (oh how Titus hated corn). Maybe they can still have ice cream – even just sometimes – while those veggies still sit on their plate.
-learn to pretend. Get into their world. Learn to play the Xbox with them. Embrace their beautiful, fleeting imagination. Let them really believe that they are Captain America or Queen Elsa. Get in their mind, see how they tick. The dishes will still be there.
– take every hug and kiss they bring you – even the twenty fifth one they use just to get out of bed at night. And really squeeze them.
-stop and look at the bugs, the rocks, the sticks, the sunset. Slow down mama, slow down.
– tell them you love them. But look in their eyes and say it like you mean it. Tell them they can do anything – anything they set their mind to.
-yes, we must hold them accountable but sometimes- maybe grace is the answer. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t end up ruined if we let some things slide.
-never judge another mama. We don’t know the whole story, we don’t know. We just don’t know.
-Go hug your babies right now. Soak in their smell, look at the innocent sparkle in their eyes that is lost somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Really feel how they squeeze you. Set down your phone and see them through the lens of your eyes not only the lens of your camera. Remember the feeling of their head on your shoulder, their hand in yours, their sloppy kisses on your cheeks. Nurse them one more time. Sleep is overrated. Listen five minutes longer about Star Wars, minecraft and Disney princesses.
Mamas, hold your children tight. How blessed you are to have been entrusted with such unique, beautiful, tiny humans.”
