Where Joy and Sorrow Meet: Ashley Jo on Heartbreak, Healing, and Redemption

Some stories don’t fit neatly into categories of grief or healing — they live in the space where both exist at the same time.

In this deeply honest and courageous conversation, Ashley Jo joins us to share the story behind her memoir, Tides of Grief, Waves of Grace: A Memoir of Scandal, Sobriety, Heartbreak, and Healing. Ashley opens up about losing her infant son to SMA, navigating the unraveling of her marriage, confronting addiction, surviving a paternity scandal and public shame, and rebuilding her life with truth, grace, and purpose.

Rather than offering easy answers, Ashley invites us into the real work of healing — where joy and sorrow can coexist, where redemption unfolds slowly, and where telling the whole truth becomes the doorway to freedom.

In this episode, we explore:

• Infant loss and the long road of grief
• Shame, secrecy, and choosing honesty
• Healing after addiction and heartbreak
• The courage it takes to tell your full story
• How grace often rises in the places we thought we were drowning

Ashley’s story reminds us that healing isn’t about erasing pain — it’s about learning to live fully, truthfully, and compassionately alongside it.

Learn more about Ashley Jo & connect on Instagram.
Purchase Tides of Grief, Waves of Grace on Amazon.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to The P-I-G
• 2:14 Ashley’s Story Begins
• 7:48 Losing Her Infant Son, Case
• 15:32 Grief, Silence, and Shame
• 25:41 Adoption, Addiction, Single Motherhood & Survival
• 38:06 Telling the Whole Messy Truth
• 50:22 When Healing Isn’t Linear
• 1:02:10 Grace, Redemption, and Self-Forgiveness
• 1:14:45 Where Joy and Sorrow Meet
• 1:24:30 Reflections on Legacy and Meaning

Transcript

Kellie: 0:04

What happens when life hands you more loss and heartbreak than you ever believed one person could carry? How do you begin to survive it? Today's guest, Ashley Joe, has lived through the kind of grief and redemption arc most of us only read about, and then she wrote it all down.

Erin: 0:20

In her memoir, Tides of Grief, Waves of Grace, Ashley opens up about losing her infant son, navigating a collapsing marriage, confronting addiction, surviving an affair and public shame, rebuilding her life, and ultimately finding sobriety, love, and purpose on the other side.

Kellie: 0:38

What we admire most about Ashley isn't just her raw honesty and resilience, it's her willingness to tell the whole truth, to share the parts most won't admit to themselves, let alone speak out loud. Her story reminds us that joy and sorrow can coexist, that redemption is never out of reach, and that Grace rises to meet us right where we are.

Erin: 1:00

Welcome to the PIG, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude. We're Kellie and Erin, sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us to be authentic and honest with ourselves. Our mother, Marsha.

Kellie: 1:32

Ashley, thank you for being here.

Ashley Jo: 1:34

Thank you for having me.

Kellie: 1:36

Your story is one of the most powerful, layered, and courageous journeys we've held space for on the PIG.

Ashley Jo: 1:44

Wow.

Kellie: 1:44

You've lived through wave after wave of grief, grace, addiction, heartbreak, motherhood, loss, healing, and recovery. And yet, what stands out most is what we, Erin and I, value most. And that's your willingness to tell the whole messy story, not just the pretty parts, but all the parts. And we get that because we live that. And we're truly honored to have this conversation with you today. I reached out to you because when I saw your bio, it struck me on a really deep personal level. I have been professionally and educationally in the world of genetics for over 30 years. And my first job, my big girl grown-up job out of college, was working for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Wow. In Phoenix, which was very close to the home office in Tucson. And so I was 22 years old. I had 1,500 clients throughout the state of Arizona. I was the patient services coordinator, had no idea what I was doing. But what I loved about that work was the closeness that I had with the parents and the families and the children and adults who were diagnosed with any of the 40 muscular diseases that we covered at that time, spinal muscular atrophy being one of them. And I was privileged during that period of work to have two national poster children, both of whom had SMA. And so knowing about your journey and your son's SMA diagnosis, that really hit my heart right out of the gate. Then I learned about your whole story. So we're grateful that you're here. You wrote a book called Tides of Grief, Waves of Grace, a memoir of scandal, sobriety, heartbreak, and healing. And to kick us off today, I just want to read a few excerpts from the prologue. Writing your own eulogy is an odd thing to do, but maybe putting these words on paper was the only way I could make sense of it all. They say that writing about upsetting events and trauma improves both physical and mental health. Maybe putting these words on paper was the only way to make sense of it all. The loss, the calamity, the moments, and choices that changed everything. This is not a story about a perfect life. It's a story about fighting, fighting to stay above water when the waves wouldn't stop coming. Fighting to find meaning when everything felt meaningless. Fighting to believe that even in the darkest moments, there was a reason to keep going. I didn't know it at the time, but this wasn't the end of my journey. It was only the beginning. So here's my story. Unfiltered, unapologetic. And if you find yourself in these pages, if you see even the smallest glimpse of your own pain, your own joy, your own grief, your own redemption, then it was all worth writing.

Ashley Jo: 5:02

Feels weird hearing you read that.

Erin: 5:06

It makes me pause and just find this beautiful moment of connection with you and your story. Because one of the things that one of the questions that you answered even on your guest inquiry form was we asked what drew you to the PIG? Why do you want to share your story with us and with our listeners? And your response to that was, I believe that sharing our raw, unfiltered stories can help others in need, which aligns so perfectly with our own personal mantra and tagline of hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. And so I know that that is just something that we all share in common. So with that, take it away, girl.

Ashley Jo: 6:01

Wow. It's just surreal. Um, like I said, hearing you read that and reflecting back to where my journey of writing this book started. And it actually started, it's funny because my mom was one of my first readers, of course, as like moms would be. Moms and sisters, they get to read everything first. And she was like, I don't know if you should open with that prologue, because I think everybody's gonna know what's going on in your life, and you're like giving away the story. And then she told me what she thought was going on in my life, and I was like, no, mom, that's not what was going on in my life. She's like, never mind, go ahead and start that way. Um, but that started like when I was at my deepest, darkest moment in my journey after having gone through so much life and life experience, the disease that you talked about, Kellie, like stole my son's life from him, right? And I was 23 years old when I had to walk through that journey. At 23, I'm still a child myself. And here I am navigating this journey of heartache and of turmoil and of like all the worst things a parent can imagine like unfolding in front of my eyes. Not only was I only 23 when my son was diagnosed with SMA, but my husband was only five months sober when he was born, 10 months sober when he was diagnosed. And then when Case passed away, Case was 10 months old, and my husband was only 15 months sober. So here I am, 23. I have two kids under the age of two. My son is diagnosed with a terminal disease, and the doctor says, no matter what you do, your son is going to die before you unless you are hit by a car or struck by lightning. There is a near certain chance that your son dies before you. And like sitting and hearing those words as a 23-year-old child is like incomprehensible, incomprehensible. How do you navigate that mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically? And it's interesting you work for the muscular dystrophy association. At first, when they started testing my son, I thought muscular dystrophy was like the worst case scenario, right? And so instantly I'm like, oh no, he's gonna be maybe in a wheelchair and not get a date to the prom, and kids are gonna make fun of him. And that's a type of grief right there, right? But then when I get that SMA diagnosis and I find out that like it's so much worse than that, right? Like there's only a 50% chance he lives to see his second birthday. That's a whole nother wave of grief. Now you're wondering, gosh, it's no longer a date to the prom. It's is he gonna live today? Is he gonna live tomorrow? How am I going to do this? How am I gonna carry all this weight and keep everyone all together? And so that's where my journey started. And that was like my first big girl experience with grief and with sorrow and with sadness and navigating it all during a hard time in like life and my marriage that was very young and early on in my marriage with a newly sober husband and a two-year-old child by the time Case passed. It was just a lot, a lot to handle. And then after Case died, then you're left with this like, what now?

Kellie: 9:40

Yeah.

Ashley Jo: 9:41

Like my identity for those five months from when he was diagnosed until when he passed away was being Case's medical mom, right? I'm doing treatments, I'm caring for him, I'm learning all the things. There's so much learning you have to do as a medical mom. You suddenly have these machines in your house that you have no idea what they do. And then when he passed away, it's like, now who am I? Because now I'm not Case's mom. I am, but he's not here, and I'm not a medical mom. And who am I in this world, in this life? And that's when I was married at the time, and my husband and I, we tried navigating through our grief together, and we did so very imperfectly because one of the things I've learned about grief is everyone goes through the grieving process on a very different timeline.

Kellie: 10:35

Yes, yes. We talk about that all the time here that it's not just the timeline, but everybody's grief in that timeline is different. It's one of the things Erin and I have had to navigate through just to get to hear. I was reflecting on a couple of things while you were talking, Ashley. One is I was 23 when our mother was diagnosed with her terminal cancer. And so I have instant empathy for facing the loss of somebody that you love very dearly. It's different, or maybe not, losing a parent versus losing a child. I also lost a child between my two children before he was born. So he died in utero and had to be delivered. We've all faced grief, but it's not just the grief timeline that's different, it's how you navigate that grief. The way you navigated grief was probably very, very different than the way your husband did. And you also had a two-year-old to take care of at the same time. So I really related to that as well that there's so much about the time of my life when I lost a child that I can't remember.

Ashley Jo: 11:48

Yeah.

Kellie: 11:48

But I know for certainty that I had a four-year-old child at that time that still needed to be loved, nurtured, and cared for.

Ashley Jo: 11:57

Yeah, I write actually in my book, there's a part of it where I basically put an apology in to my daughter who's now 19 years old, because I I can't recall anything from that time of my life except for case and the overwhelming grief and strangers staring at me like I had four heads when I told them that I had just lost a baby, right? It's you do you lose sense of time. Like you grip on to the memories that you have from the past, but you completely and totally lose sense of time of what's going on when you're navigating that grief. And for me, you're spot on. My dealing with it, coping with it, navigating through it looked nothing like how my husband navigated and coped through it. The power of distraction my whole life has been a very, very powerful thing for me. So I do remember diving like right back into work, right? Which seems odd. And then, of course, I shared what was going on in my life because that's just kind of who I am and how I am. But then I'm consoling the stranger sitting across from me who's bawling because I say I just lost a baby. You're laughing because it's like you've been in that scenario where it's like, hold on, roles should be reversed here. You should be consoling me. I'm the one who lost the baby, I'm consoling you. And you almost find yourself in this pattern of like, oh no, no, no, but it's okay. He's in a better place, right? And then I'm like, what am I saying? It's actually not okay. Yeah, yes, he's in, he's in a better place, and and you know probably Kellie better than anyone. SMA is kind of like a prison sentence. Yeah, like it is, and so there was a lot of freedom in Case's death, too, where like his life on earth was never gonna be the life that I wanted for my son. And so there was some freedom in his passing. So I'm also dealing with the juxtaposition that comes with that of like the tremendous grief coupled with the tremendous and overwhelming sorrow. And I just dove into work because I didn't know how to process it. And then at night I would go home and I'd sit in the rocking chair that I used to rock him in, and I'd rock and I would sing songs that I used to sing to him, and that was how I coped, right? My husband coped by holding other people's babies at church, and that like drove me nuts because I would sit and be like, that's supposed to be our baby. Like, how can you just sit and hold another little boy like it's normal when that's supposed to be our family? And so that was painful for me to watch him like latch onto these children at church and hold them and love on them. And yet, thank goodness I could find grace in that moment to realize that even though it hurt me to see that, that that's exactly what he needed to process his grief in the moment. And I think that's the odd thing about grief. You have to hold space for the other humans in your life who are going through the thick of it. And you have to know that we all struggle from similar to me bias. We think how we're going through it is how they are, but that is not reality at all. Right.

Kellie: 15:09

Big kudos to you being a young woman at 23, and our daughter had her first baby at 23. To be able to have that wisdom, that not only did you need to grieve in a certain way, but holding space for your husband and probably other family members, parents, your child, your church community, everybody who's also grieving in a different way. How do you feel, Ashley, about giving us the 30,000-foot view of the timeline of your journey that you encapsulate in this book? And then maybe we come back and we talk more about the brown-eyed boy and the beginning and just navigate our way through the story.

Ashley Jo: 15:56

Yes, let's do it. 30,000 feet level view of this timeline. So 2008 is when my son Cornelius is born, and 2009 is when my son Case passes away. Cornelius Case interchangeable, same person. I'm not talking about two people here. After he passed away in 2009, my husband and I went on what I call a series of unfortunate moves. Due to work, we had to move from location to location. And so as that happened, we started to grow further and further apart, and our marriage started to struggle. We stopped holding space for each other to grieve the way that the other individual needed to. So in 2013, I had a marriage-ending affair, which I am not at all proud of. It's the part of my story that carries the most shame, and probably the part of this book that encompassed the most healing that I needed to do from that. In 2014, we got a divorce. In 2016, I uh fell madly in love with a man, head over heels with him. Uh, we decided to do everything backwards and have a baby because my internal clock was ticking and I was almost 32 and I had like told myself I'm never gonna have a baby after 32, right? And so we had a baby. There was a tremendous amount of turmoil and shame associated with her birth to the point where I ended up getting a paternity test because I had been with another man who crawled back into my life right before he and I got together. And we got fraudulent paternity test results from my daughter's birth. So for the entire pregnancy, I went through the pregnancy being told by a company that one man was the father, even though everything innately inside of me was like, this makes literally no sense. Like I know how this works and this doesn't make sense. And two weeks after she was born, we got the real results back. And that was when I learned that the company was a fraudulent company. So there's a ton of shame there. Brutal. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and that led me into just a downward spiral of shame. I had incredible depression, anxiety that I began to mask with alcohol. And that was my way of self-medicating. I work for a holistic health company. So God forbid I take a medication for anything, but alcohol was socially acceptable. One drink turned into two, turned into three, turned into four, turned in a five, turned into six. Fast forward to 2020 and COVID happens, and that addiction cycle just got out of control when suddenly I am a single mom with three kids, an eighth-grade teacher by default because kids couldn't go to school, a fourth grade teacher by default because kids couldn't go to school, a preschool teacher trying to work from home, trying to navigate all this guilt, shame that I haven't dealt with. And my addiction just spiraled, reaching the point where I had two suicide attempts. And the last one, I remember thinking, wow, you can't even do that, was the initial thought in my head. Wow. And then the very immediate next thought that came into my mind was you're here for a reason. God has a bigger, better plan and a bigger, better purpose for you. And I wish I could say I cleaned up my act and I got sober right then and there, but that's not how the story goes. It took a few months. And during that time, through all that turmoil, I met the man who is now my husband. And I got sober on August 14 of 2020. I have been sober ever since. I just celebrated five years in August. Which is awesome. I got married to my now husband on April 8th of 2023. We have a beautiful blended family with five kids and one up in heaven. Yes, it's crazy. And then it's like, okay, I finally reached like my happily ever after, right? But right after we got married, everything kind of came crashing back down again. On June 5 of 2023, just short time, not even two full months after I was married, I got a text from my son that his dad had passed away. And so he passed away from a fentanyl overdose. And so then I'm navigating this like newly married, two kids who were fathered by the man who passed away, trying to walk through that grief while being lovely and nice and kind to my new husband, who's like, what the hell? I didn't know I signed up for this. And then I wrote a book about the whole experience, and here I am today. So that's 30,000 feet, but probably a lot longer than you wanted it to be.

Erin: 21:49

There are so many elements of your story that resonate so deeply with me personally that I just want to hear more. I have all the questions. I want to hear all the answers. There is definitely not anything that you could overshare with us at this point. So thank you for giving that 30,000-foot overview. And I do want to dive in and let's do it. Ask some questions and pick apart some pieces of your story. It's one of those stories that you hear, you read, you see, and it's just, it's almost just too much to believe. You've walked through so much life that most people don't experience ever in their lives. And I have so much respect and admiration for your honesty and for your transparency. And I think that that in and of itself will impact so many people. And so I want you to hear that even just the snippets and the glimpses that you have provided into your life, and to your story, have impacted me in a deeply profound way. And so thank you for that. Thank you for writing your book and for telling your story. But thank you for your openness and your willingness to just dive into conversation with us and to be that open book and to share so much of who you are. Because I know each one of these experiences have shaped who you are as a human being and who you are now is so beautiful. And I hate the fact that Kellie and I talk about this all the time. Like I try so hard to not live my life with, you know, regret. There are decisions that I have made that I am not proud of. There are things that I have done that I'd really rather not shed light on. But each one of those life experiences, every decision made has shaped who I am today. We wouldn't be who we are without all of those experiences. And so it's it's hard to sometimes find gratitude in the ugliness. At the same time, it's so important that we do that, that we look those things just in the eye, right? And that we look ourselves in the mirror and acknowledge who we are and where we've come from and how those things have led us to who we are today.

Ashley Jo: 24:29

It's so interesting because I took about a six-month break in writing because I didn't know how to go from the part of my story about my son that's filled with like so many people have empathy when they hear that part of the story to the next part that's filled with so much shame. I was like paralyzed. Like, how do I make that jump? And then there was only one choice. You just said it. I wouldn't be who I were today if it weren't for a culmination of all of those experiences, not just one or two or three or four, but the whole story is what led me to be who I am today and where I am today. And that was where, like in my mind, this is like the definition of a tell-all. Like, I didn't really hold anything back. I just said, if we're doing it, we're going all in. And that means the really like chapters my dad doesn't want to read. You know, everything.

Kellie: 25:25

Yes. And yet, our parents have made those missteps too. They came from a generation that didn't talk about that stuff. What I love about our generation and even the generations coming after us is the commitment to that raw vulnerability and accepting that the concept of failing forward actually does exist. And that we can grow and become and embrace these dark shadow parts of ourself because we're all human beings living a human experience.

Ashley Jo: 26:04

People ask me all the time, like, would you change anything about your journey? No, because if I did, I wouldn't be who I am and where I am today. Now, I wouldn't wish my story on a soul. I mean, Erin, you said like you've gone through more life than most people. My older sister and I have a joke that I'm the older sister because by life experience, I definitely am the older sister, right? But that's the deck of cards that I got here in life. Some of them I played well, some of them I didn't play well, right? Some decisions I could sit and I could be filled with shame for the rest of my life, or I could choose to find a way to put purpose to the pain that I have walked through. And that's really why I come on shows like this and I share stories because I had to find a way to put purpose to my pain. Because if there wasn't purpose, I didn't see the point of being here. If I'm being completely vulnerable and transparent, there had to be a purpose.

Kellie: 27:06

You also had to grow up very, very early. Did you know you have two children, 23 years old. Is it Azariah?

Ashley Jo: 27:14

Yes.

Kellie: 27:15

So Azariah was two. Well, he was a year when Case was actually born. Is that correct?

Ashley Jo: 27:22

So Adela was one when Case was born. Azariah was born after Case. Okay. So Adela was her and Case were 17 months to the day apart. And so she was just over two.

Erin: 27:37

My boys are 15 months apart to the day.

Ashley Jo: 27:41

Oh, God bless you. God bless you...

Erin: 27:43

Okay, so can we rewind a little bit? Because I want to make sure that I'm really capturing your family completely. So, how old were you when you got married? And then walk us through the births and introduction of your children, just so we can make sure that we're all in the same timeline.

Ashley Jo: 28:01

Yeah. So I got pregnant with Adela when I was 20. I gave birth to her in 2006 at the age of 21. My husband and I got married weeks after she was born, like literally weeks. Like I still had like all the things postpartum happening. Then we decided when she was really young to have another baby because my thought process was get two in diapers and out of diapers at the same time. Easier to potty train two than one. They can learn from each other. So we started trying to get pregnant and got pregnant instantly, which is why they're 17 months apart. So Case was born in February of 2008. Case passed away in January of 2009. We decided to adopt eventually. That was a whole conversation. And so Azariah was adopted in July of 2010. Got it. And then got divorced in 2013. So he doesn't really remember me and his dad ever being together. And then I had Waverly in August of 2017. And then when I married my husband Josh, I acquired two bonus sons. So right now we have Waverly, who is eight. We have Lucas, who's 11. We have Braxton, who's 13, Azariah, who's 15, and Adela, who is 19, all living in our homes. So seven humans under this wild roof that we have going on here. Wow.

Erin: 29:39

Okay, thank you for breaking all of that down because I really wanted to make sure that I understood that all completely. And like I said, I'm right there with you. My boys are 15 months apart to the day. And unlike you, people used to always say to me, like, oh my gosh, did you plan that? And I was like, no, who planned something like that?

Ashley Jo: 30:01

And now I know. Crazy people like me plan something like that. Yes, they do.

Kellie: 30:08

I love it. I love that we can laugh in the midst of craziness and chaos. And I think that's one of the things about this particular podcast that we enjoy so much is we shed a lot of tears and we beam a lot of laughter because life is just so messy. So let's talk about the early mess. Yes. Let's talk about part one, the brown-eyed boy. Yes. When you think back to that time in your life with a one-year-old and a new baby, let's walk through what happened inside of you as a young woman just coming off being a child herself, receiving this diagnosis and understanding the depth of the road that you were about to walk. How did you find out? How did the diagnosis come about?

Ashley Jo: 31:04

Yes. So my husband was on a mission trip. We had been put on a three-month waiting list to get into a pediatric neurologist to find out what was going on. We identified when he was like two months old that there definitely was something wrong because he couldn't really hold his head up. And when we changed his diapers, his legs would just like plop back down to the changing table. Now, hindsight, that three months of waiting was the best gift that I ever had because it was three months that I did not have to worry that my son was going to die. Right. So then I go into the pediatric neurologist. My husband is on a mission trip. I'm by myself. And she's doing her thing and talking to him. And she is uh just holding him up and talking to him in a cooing voice. And all of a sudden she looks at me and she says, Does his tongue always quiver like that? And like I have a very strong internal dialogue. My brain is very loud. I have undiagnosed ADHD. And so I'm thinking, like, what kind of a freaking question is that? Does his tongue quiver? Like, how would I know? And then I'm like, wait, but I should know I'm his mom. So why do I not know the answer to this question? And then I'm like, I don't know, does it? And then it's all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, I'm just a horrible mother. I have no idea what's going on right now. And then I think I blurted out something like, I never really thought of it, but now that you say that, I think it does. And so she's just quiet and again, like still moving around. And then she looks at me and says, I'm gonna test him for something, and it's not a good disease to have. And I'm only gonna test him for one thing, which in my mind, I'm like, then she knows that's what this is, right? Like when they're like, We're only testing him for one thing. And she tells me, Don't go home and Google it because you're not gonna find anything good, which I'm like, of course I'm gonna go home and Google it. And she tells me that it's a disease called spinal muscular atrophy. First time I had ever heard those words in my life. And that because he's five months old, he might be a type two, but chances are he's type one. And if he were type one, he would only have a 50% chance to live to see his second birthday. In my mind, how do you process this, right? And so she's still talking, but I'm no longer hearing any of the words that she's saying. Then she sends the nurse in, they draw his blood because it's a simple blood test, as you know. And she comes back in and says, okay, if it's positive, we'll give you a call and tell you to come in and talk to you. And if it's negative, we'll give you a call and we'll schedule another appointment to try and figure out what's going on. And by the way, the test is gonna take two to eight weeks. And I'm like, hold on, hold like, pause. Could somebody please pause? You literally just tell me if he has type one and if this is the disease he has, it's the only thing I'm testing him for. You have to wait two to eight weeks to find out, right? And so I write all this down in my phone because I'm worried I'm gonna forget, right? I take my baby out to the car and I sit in the car, and my birthday, my 23rd birthday, is 12 days away. And I instantly, I just know I'm gonna find out my kid's gonna die on my birthday. Like instantly. I can't explain it other than like I know that I'm going to find out that he's gonna die on my birthday. I pick up the phone, I call my mom. I am a mess. I can't hardly talk. And I'm like, I just know they're gonna call me on my birthday and tell me my baby's gonna die. And she's like, back up, what's going on? And like talk me through what happened. I talk her through what happened, and she says, you know, Ashley, they said two to eight weeks. They're not gonna call you on your birthday because your birthday is in 12 days. Get this out of your mind. We'll get the prayer warriors praying. Everything's gonna be okay. Just deep breath in, deep breath out, the things moms do, right? So that two weeks was hell. I don't remember any of it, but it was hell. And on my birthday, I'm at work. I worked at a bank at the time, and I'm just like on pins and needles waiting all day because I'm certain they're going to call me. And we make it all the way to four o'clock. And I'm like, I guess they're not gonna call me. Like I finally started having like a little piece of relief, right? And then at 4:30, the phone rings. And a man named Tim answered the phone and he looked over at me and he said, Hey, Ashley, the phone's for you. And I was in the process of counting my money and my till because that's what I had to do. And I just dropped it and literally ran to the phone, right? Because what do you do? And she's like, Hey, it's Dr. Betsy. Just wanted to let you know we got cases test results back. Can you and Ryan come in and talk to us? And so right away I know he's positive for SMA because she had told me that we would have to go in and talk to her if he was positive for SMA. So that's kind of how the diagnosis came to be. And we went in and we talked to her. And I remember I didn't even know if I was supposed to bring my son to the appointment. Like I actually had to call them back to be like, so wait, do you just need me and Ryan or do you need case with me too? And the second she was like, no, that's okay. You don't need to bring case, I was like, oh, this is really bad. This is really happening. And like, wait, what do you mean? Like, you can't give him a pill, you can't give him something, you can't, like, there's nothing you can do, right? And at that point in the journey, there was not a lot that they could do. A lot has changed and advanced medically since then. But at that point, there was very, very little hope. We left that appointment with a little bit of hope, but not a lot of certainty and a ton of doctor's appointments. We left with an appointment for a pulmonologist and a sleep study and all the things, right? But we left with no answers. It was just like, just wait. And when he starts going downhill, then we'll walk you through what happens then. So it's just devastating, right? And part of what you said, like, how did I change? Our survival instincts are so strong, like innately in us. And part of how I changed was my survival instinct just went up through the roof. And part of me surviving meant I didn't focus at all on me, and I focused on everyone else in my family because I had to keep the family unit okay. Because if the family unit wasn't okay, I knew I wasn't gonna be okay. So I focused everything on Case, everything on Adela, and everything on Ryan's sobriety, and nothing on myself. I don't remember having a single thought about myself during that time, except, gosh, I'm tired. I really wish I could sleep.

Kellie: 37:51

Well, hearing you recount that time in your life is really special to me, Ashley, because I served as the patient service coordinator who stepped in at your age that you were at the time, as a young 22, 23-year-old kid, being a woman with a big girl grown-up job to hold space for what was happening during those early diagnosis moments and how do we handle this and where do we go from here? So I just had such a revisit to that part of my life. So thank you for that. I have so much admiration and respect for the weight that all of that carried during that time. And your description of going into survival mode, because we as human beings do that. We're trying to survive as we're trying to help all those around us survive. So you have your survival instinct, your maternal instinct, and yet you're on the heels of still being a child yourself. This all happened at a very, very early stage in your life as a young woman. And we find out what we're made of. Yes, we do in those moments. So we fast forward to losing case because we know the journey, right? A lot of medical appointments, a lot of equipment in your house, a lot of chaos, a lot of in and out, families rallying. And yet the ultimate outcome of the situation is going to come. So talk to us about that and how that changed you. And and also my appreciation for your statement that losing case was the hardest thing you've ever done and one of the best things that ever happened.

Ashley Jo: 39:46

Mm-hmm. I think there are very few people who understand that statement when I make that.

Kellie: 39:52

I agree.

Ashley Jo: 39:52

Like I think some people probably hear it and they're like, ooh, hold on. Did she just go there? Yes, I did. And I walked. Journey and anybody who walked the journey understands it. I think knowing you're facing the inevitable death is so hard. And that's where I think that Case's journey, when you are given a horrible prognosis, no matter what, there was no hope at that moment in time. It looks different than people who walk through a cancer journey or a journey where there is hope or there's at least a glimmer of hope. Like there was none, not a glimmer. Like when we met the pulmonologist, we knew it was over. Like he was gonna die before we did, didn't matter what we did. And so there was a piece where like we accepted that actually pretty early on. And we were actually on the Children's Miracle Network Telethon and they interviewed our doctor for that. And she actually said that. She said, most of the time when I meet parents where Ryan and Ashley were, they're in a phase of denial. But Ryan and Ashley were in a phase of like acceptance and acknowledging that what was gonna happen to their son was going to happen whether they wanted it to or not. Takes a long time for some parents to get there. They got there really, really quickly. And I think that's in part because of the faith that we hold that there is a better life after death, right? But knowing it was inevitable, it was the hardest thing for a control freak like me to be like, there's nothing I can do to control this situation. Nothing. Literally nothing. And so what happens then is you kind of live every moment with super high anxiety. I'm on running on adrenaline because every moment I'm like, is he breathing okay? Is this gonna be the last day? Is this gonna be the last time I'm gonna see him? Is this gonna be the last moment? Are we gonna have enough fun? Are we gonna enjoy this? Like the inner dialogue is super strong in my head, like I've said before. And then when he passed, the reason why there was relief coupled with sorrow was because I didn't have to worry anymore. It's like the thing I had been fearing for five months happened. And guess what? I was still alive and I survived it. I think oftentimes we say things like, Oh, I'd never make it through that. Yes, you would. You're stronger than you think you are. The human spirit is stronger than you think it is. Your survival instinct is there, your maternal instinct is there. It doesn't mean it's not gonna be hard. It is gonna be so hard. You don't know how to get out of bed sometimes, but you will survive the hard thing. And I did. I didn't do it well, right? Like afterwards, there's a whole journey that goes along with that, but I lived through it and I lived to tell another day. And now I had a story where Kellie, I've been able to meet other families with SMA. We went on a list at our local hospital where if parents have a child who's diagnosed, we were on a list with phone numbers and names that they can call. And we got the privilege to mentor two different families through that journey, right? Two of them, their kids had type two SMA, which looks a lot different than type one. But one of them, their child had type one SMA and walked a road that was almost like eerily similar to cases. And Ryan and I got the opportunity to like walk alongside them and the questions that they had that we had that nobody was there to answer, because we were one of the very first diagnoses in our hospital area. It's just an honor to be able to give back to a community that you wished that there was someone who could give you, like, I get it, they're talking in doctor terms and medical terms right now. Talk to me like a parent. What's this gonna mean? What's this gonna look like? What's my life gonna be? And we got the opportunity to go and to do that with someone else. And it's it's so interesting. I've never shared this before. But after Case passed away, they came and they got all of his medical equipment. And that was so hard, right? Like they're removing, and I'm like, these are my things. Like, what why are you touching them? They're mine. But like I no longer had a need for them. But right after that, it was like two weeks after that, that the other family that we were mentoring said, Oh my goodness, we got a coph cyst, which is one of the machines that patients with SMA use. And they didn't know this, but they got cases coffacists. There was only one. You know what I mean? Like there was only one. And so, like to be able to just give back and like see that happening, it's just poof, tingles, right?

Kellie: 44:42

What a gift.

Erin: 44:43

It's like a it's a different form of organ donation. You know, you hear it all the time, you know, with like that concept of organ donation, but it the gift of giving can extend outside of the body, yeah. With things like that. That's really remarkable.

Ashley Jo: 44:59

Uh like it was probably a year later where I was sitting across from somebody at the bank. I had a picture of Case behind my desk, and he was like, Who is that? Like, I know that little boy. Who is that? And I'm like, You mean you know that boy? That's my son, right? So I explained, I was like, Oh, that's my son, and I explained the whole story, and he got tears in his eyes. And I'm like, what is happening now, right? And he said, My wife was your son's nurse, and we just got done doing a training at the hospital. He was a physical therapist about spinal muscular atrophy. They did a training for the whole hospital on spinal muscular atrophy because of the journey that your family walked through and the mistakes and learning that we made along the way through taking care of him as like our first patient. And they put your son's picture up like when they were talking and teaching us about SMA. And I'm like, just how cool is that to learn that like we did get to help in some way, even though our journey sucked. It's the ripple effect.

Kellie: 46:06

Yeah, that's exactly it. What a beautiful demonstration of that in real life.

Ashley Jo: 46:58

Yeah, we do. And this is where I took like a really long pause in writing because this is the piece that is so challenging, right? And I think here's the thing I wanna say about the aftermath. There was a point where our doctor, our son's doctor, sat me and my husband down, and he was like, Look, listen, statistically, you guys aren't gonna make it. I'm just telling you right now, you have a child who is going to die. Statistically, the odds are stacked against you. Your marriage is not gonna make it unless you work and you try really, really hard. And both Ryan and I, I didn't realize this until after the book came out. Friends started telling me, oh, you guys would tell people that. Like statistically, we're not gonna make it, but we are, we are not gonna be this statistic, right? And what we did by like saying that was kind of like put a ton of pressure on our shoulders. Everybody better think you're okay because they already think you're gonna fall apart. So no matter what you do and what move you make, just make sure it looks like you're okay because everybody's expecting you to fail. So you better not fail, right? Yeah, they'll prove them wrong, hold it together. And we're so competitive that we're like, we're gonna prove them wrong, right? But then what happened is we moved so many times that we got away from our church family who had helped us through Case's death. We got away from Ryan's home group who had helped him through the early days of sobriety. And I was really good at just putting on a mask and pretending like everything was okay, but it wasn't. We were falling apart. There was no relationship, there was no real marriage. We did not like each other, we did not get along with each other, we argued all the time, but I still put on this mask like everything is fine, everything is okay. And so my family, even when Ryan and I ended up getting a divorce, my family was shocked because they were like, but wait, you guys are great. What do you mean you're getting a divorce? And not only were we getting a divorce, but we were getting a divorce because I had an affair. And I had an affair because I told him I was gonna divorce him, and he said it great, go for it. But if you do that, I'm gonna make your life a living hell and the kids are never gonna see me again. And so I was like, fine, let's stay married. Then we stayed married, and then you know, six months later, I end up rekindling with someone from college, I end up having an affair, and that's the aftermath. It's a lot there.

Erin: 49:32

I'm trying to figure out how to articulate my question because gosh, I just relate to so many aspects of that story again, like we talked about before. But can you insert into this the adoption story? Oh, yeah, and the timeline of that so that we can weave that in and then circle back.

Ashley Jo: 49:55

Yes. So I feel like there's this whole after case passes away, we didn't want to just have one kid in our family, right? We wanted Adella to have a sibling. We agonized between have another kid, which if you have another kid and you both carry the SMA gene, it is an autosoma recessive gene, which means there is a 25% chance the kid has nothing. There's the 25% chance the kid has SMA, and there's a 50% chance they carry the gene, but they don't have the disease. And so, like 25% chance you have another baby, and that baby ends up having SMA. Like, I'm not a betting woman, but if I were, I'm probably not gonna bet on a 25% odd. So, Ryan and I actually went head to head about this. Like, he was like, let's just do it, let's just risk it, let's have another kid. Easy for him to say because he was not the medical caretaker. Usually, when you have a terminally ill child, you have one parent who plays the role of fun parent, you have the other parent who is the medical parent. I was the medical parent, he was the fun parent. So I could understand why he didn't think it would be a big deal to have another kid with SMA. And don't hear that wrong. Like the loss was so hard on him, but he just was like, it's only a 25% chance. What's the chance it happens? I'm like, have you seen our life? Probably pretty damn good. And so we thought about it for a long time. I reached out to specialists to like learn more. We went to genetic counselors to learn more, and the odds never changed. And I was not willing to go through that again. So then we talked about adoption. And Ryan was like, no, I don't want to raise someone else's child, is how he kept phrasing it. And then one day it was like his heart just completely changed. He came home and he was like, No, listen, I made an appointment at an adoption attorney. We're going to go in tomorrow and we're gonna adopt a baby. And I'm like, where did this come from? I don't really know. I don't really care. What? But let's do it. So from the time where we had that appointment to the time where we had Azariah, it was only six months. And like looking back at it, and and I don't want anybody to hear this the wrong way, but when you are so broken inside, you'll do anything to try and fix that brokenness. And it was like if we could just bring our family back together and like maybe getting to the point where like we have two kids again, then like maybe we're gonna be happy and excited and life is gonna be good. So looking at it, we're just gripping at straws to feel okay in life. And don't hear me wrong, I'm not saying that's how Azariah came to be, but I'm saying that innately and internally, we strive for like peace and comfort and happiness. And we were easily able to like ignore all the problems in our marriage because we're focusing on bringing a new baby into it. Yeah.

Kellie: 52:56

And you adopted Azariah as an infant, correct?

Ashley Jo: 53:00

Yes, he was 90 minutes old when I first got to hold him. So that was incredible.

Erin: 53:06

Wow. So then what? What was next? Yes, in the aftermath, because you're grieving the loss of case, and you've made all these moves, and you welcome Azariah and your family, and there's so much love and commitment to the children and all of that, but the two of you are very disconnected.

Ashley Jo: 53:32

Yes.

Erin: 53:32

And you know, the affair happens. What is next in the aftermath?

Ashley Jo: 53:39

So I think it's a it's a slow fade, right? It's kind of like if you don't see someone for a really long time and all of a sudden you see them and they've like gained all this weight, and you're like, oh my goodness, there's a little bit of shock to the system. But when you're that person, you don't realize it's going on. That's how it was in my marriage, right? Is it's like I knew it wasn't good, but I didn't know like how bad it was actually until my sister came to visit me and Ryan and Adela and Azariah, where we were living at the time. And her and Ryan just got in a massive blow up. It was horrible. They ended up like not talking to each other. And that was kind of the moment where I was like, oh, this is the reality of my life right now. This is where I am. This is not good. I don't know how to fix this. So that was when I had told Brian that I wanted a divorce. And he kind of said, I'll go to Germany and never see the kids again. Not gonna happen. And I just decided to stay with him for the sake of the kids. And then it was shortly after that that we moved and I had the affair. And then after that, I entered into being a single mom, which is the hardest job in the world. The hardest job in the world. And Ryan relapsed after I had my affair. So it was he was sober for almost seven years the whole time that we were married. Finds out about the affair, we separate, he relapses. So now I'm not just single mom, but I'm like single mom trying to make sure my kids have a dad in their life, but also gotta put my finger on the pulse. Like, is he okay right now or is he not okay right now? Should they go there? Should they not go there? And that's a whole nother layer of like stress and weight on my shoulders. And I'm the like good parent, right? By terms of society, if there is such a thing. And I watched him kind of like bounce in and out of addiction, and the kids watched him bounce in and out of addiction for the rest of his life. And it's it's so sad. There was a moment where like his family called me and they didn't know what to do. And they're like, oh my gosh, he's like foaming at the mouth. I'm like, why are you calling me? You should be calling 911, not me. Like, I'm not your savior right now. Call 911. And he went to rehab a couple of times. So I navigated that whole thing with my kids and like explaining to them, your dad's not a bad person. Your dad is sick, your dad has a disease. Even if he wanted to stop drinking, he could, he physically couldn't right now, right? And I'm doing the best I can to navigate through that journey with my kids, which was very hard, all the while to make sure that he can see them, because I am a firm believer that having a parent in a child's life, even if they're not a perfect parent, is better than having no parent at all. And people can disagree with that all they want. That was my personal philosophy. That was how I chose to live my life. I made sure he had supervised visitation so that I knew the kids were always safe. I also got Adela a phone so she could call me at any moment in time if anything were to go right or anything were to go wrong. And that's what that part of the aftermath looked like was challenging and me again being like, who am I in this world? I'm not married, I'm a single mom. I didn't want to be a single mom. I kind of fought that identity with every morsel of my being. It was just like, maybe if I can just find a husband and get married, then I'll be happy again, right? That constant like trying to put back the puzzle that no longer fits together. Yeah, it was it was a crazy, crazy time.

Erin: 57:17

I think that happens when those feelings of shame are at the forefront where we search for things to just it's almost like a band-aid, right? Just to cover that up. So then life looks good again on the outside. And that maybe then that'll seep through, you know, and heal us internally. We know that's not the case, but I think that that's often where those feelings come from.

Ashley Jo: 57:44

Yeah, there was nothing good about my life. I I hated, like, to be clear, at this moment in the aftermath, I hated my life. Like, hated it. Don't hear me wrong. I love my kids. Of course. I hated my life and the place that I had gotten to. And that was when like I did. I looked to men to make it better. I looked to alcohol to medicate my horrible feelings. I withdrew from society and crawled inside of a turtle shell to isolate myself because of that shame, because of all of the feelings attached to my journey and my story. And it was just a really, really messy time, which I think is why it took me so long to write through that. Because it's like, okay, crap, there's a lot to unpack here. Am I ready to unpack it? And yes, I was, and yes, I am. And I'm so grateful. I wrote through that whole season. I tried to have a relationship with the man I had an affair with. It was the most codependent, not good relationship I have ever had. But again, like, put the broken pieces back together. Maybe you can just fix it. And that was like four years of on again, off again, on again, off again, very, very not healthy relationship where like he would make me hide when family members came over and not let me be seen in public with it. It was just very unhealthy. And then when he finally cut that relationship off, that was when I was like forced to be alone for the first time since I was 21 years old. And like, how do I do that? How do I navigate that? I don't, I didn't do it well. I drank myself to sleep every night because I didn't know how to be alone. And then eventually I met Waverly's dad, and he and I, like I said, fell head over heels in love, and that's when you know the scandal starts.

Kellie: 1:00:21

Because the relationship with Dominic had cut off, the relationship with Jackson had started, you're pregnant, and now Dominic is incorrectly from the bad company determined to be Waverly's dad, not Jackson.

Ashley Jo: 1:00:40

Yes. And it was a it was a crazy scenario where Jackson and I decided to have a baby. Like we were full on, head over heels in love. And you know that saying, you always want what you can't have. So Dominic, who's been out of my life for a very long time, gets wind from someone. Ooh, Ashley's in a new relationship. Ashley's gonna move. Ashley's gonna get married. He comes knocking on my door one night. We have a one night thing. And then I tell him the next morning, like, I'm in love. I'm moving. This was a mistake. I cannot do this. Like, I'm I'm moving on. I'm closing this chapter of my life. And I got the positive pregnancy test three days after that. So, like, I knew like it's not physically possible for him to be the father of the baby. But to assure everyone involved in this situation, I'm like, fine, I'll just take a prenatal test to like make sure and give everyone the affirmation that they need so we can all just move forward and forget about this, get the result that says that Dominic is the father. I have to make a string of phone calls. I didn't have to, I chose to call my family, my best friend, my sister, Dominic, Jackson, Jackson's family, Jackson's mom, Jackson's brother. I'm making these humiliating phone calls. Like when I say humiliating, like, hey, so I know you think Jackson and I are having a baby, but as it turns out, there was a night where someone showed up at my house and I decided to sleep with him. And lo and behold, we just got some results that say that he's the father. So I'm sorry, I'm a whore. And uh turns out the company might be a scam, but I'm not really sure. So I guess we'll find out in two weeks after she's born. Sound good. I made like 25 phone calls like that, you guys.

Erin: 1:02:34

Wow. Wow.

Ashley Jo: 1:02:36

It was the worst moment of my life.

Kellie: 1:02:39

Coming off a really dark place that you had just pulled yourself out of. We just heard you talk about drinking yourself to sleep at night. And I don't like the person that I am, and I don't like where I've gotten to in my life. This is not where I want to be, who I want to be, how I want to be doing it. And yet you're starting this new chapter with this new man that you fall in love with, and you're right back in it again. That's hard.

Ashley Jo: 1:03:06

And because of my own choices, and I think that was like the hardest part is like right, I didn't have to open the door and let Dominic in. I chose to. But in reality, a piece of why I chose to is because like there was such a connection and friendship there that no one wants to be ghosted and have someone disappear out of their life completely. So here's this man that I've been wanting to come back into my life, and he shows up right after I decided to have a baby. It felt cruel, like it felt cruel, like torture if I'm being completely honest. And then to have to walk through this whole journey. And then I navigated my entire pregnancy alone. Yeah. With my mom, my sister, and my best friend, they were the only people that I was really comfortable sharing the full scope of like, here's everything. Yes, I called all the family members, but I wouldn't tell them like what was going on in here, which in here, what was going on at that time again is fix what's broken. I didn't really care who ended up being the father, as long as I just ended up with them, right? As silly as that sounds. Like I say the words in my out loud voice, and I'm like, oh my goodness, what are you doing? But if you see a theme in my story, it's like I'm constantly trying to like write the wrong. And here's what I've learned in life you don't do that. That's not a thing. Rights don't make up for wrongs, and vice versa. You just wake up, get out of bed, put one foot in front of the other, and do the next right thing. But doing the right thing doesn't make up for the wrong thing.

Erin: 1:04:46

That is such an important life lesson.

Kellie: 1:04:48

And it's powerful to hear you talk about it so eloquently and with such strength and conviction at this stage of your life. It's very inspiring, and it's a message that young women and young men especially need to hear, but it's a message that all of us need to hear because rights and wrongs happen at every age and every stage of life. But it is our authenticity, our vulnerability, our willing to face those parts of ourselves to get up every day and look at our own selves in the mirror and choose to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And you did it over and over and over again.

Ashley Jo: 1:05:37

And if you had told me in the middle of the scandal that this is where I would be today, eight and a half years later, sharing publicly, I would have been like, You are crazy. I am never telling a soul this is gonna be tucked away in a corner. And then I don't remember who it was, but someone said to me, you know, Ashley, you're certainly not the first woman to sleep with two men around the same time. And I was like, oh dang. I didn't invent this. I know, but I was carrying that weight. Like I was the only person in the world who had ever made such a stupid decision. And the second someone said that, I found this freedom that, like, you're right, a lot of people make these mistakes. A lot of people make a wrong choice and then try and write it, right? And I found a little freedom in that moment. And then through writing this and getting the courage to like say the words for the first time in my out loud voice, as I often say, every time I spoke it, there was a little more freedom and a little more confidence and a little more freedom and a little more confidence and a little more certainty. And I'd start to hear other people who'd gone through similar situations. And I was like, you know, all of this pressure I've been putting on myself to like be better and be perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect human in this world. So stop trying to be one, just be who you are and put one foot in front of the other and just do the next right thing.

Erin: 1:07:10

I am so inspired by you. And I said it in the beginning, and I will say it again, but your honesty about, like you said, the choices, right? You made these choices. I've made my own choices. Kellie's made her own choice. Everybody makes their own choices, but the honesty that you bring about the choices that you made, that so many people hide. And like you said, you wanted to just shove that stuff under the rug, ignore it. But I'm so inspired by your transparency. It is a beautiful thing to witness.

Ashley Jo: 1:07:50

I haven't always been like this, right? And so the first person I had to start being honest with in order to be the way I am today was myself. I had to be willing to get out of that turtle shell and look in the mirror and say, wow, this is who you are and this is what your life has become. But you don't need to be defined by your decisions. And you can choose to be someone else. And for a long time, I medicated all of that shame with alcohol, right? And I just tried and tried and tried to numb everything. But when you numb everything, you feel nothing. You don't get the bad, which is great because that's what I was trying to keep away, but you don't get the good either. And so I was just like this numb human being, and it was a miserable existence. And how I got to the point of being able to be honest the way I am today is when I finally made that choice to get sober. That meant doing the work. That meant looking in the mirror, that meant writing my own eulogy as though my life had ended due to substance abuse, reading that in front of a group of strangers, saying the really hard things like I was involved in a paternity scandal in my out loud voice. And the moment I gave some some like actual words and brought those words to life, there was freedom every single time. I felt more and more free to be more and more authentic and honest to myself. So, like a piece of this is absolutely, I want to give back. Because if anybody is going through one ounce of what I went through and feels alone, I want them to know they are not alone. Other people have walked this road before you and they survived, so you can too. But a piece of it was also, I needed to believe that. Yeah.

Kellie: 1:09:50

And that first bold, vulnerable step. I want to repeat this because there are a lot of people listening who need to hear this message for themselves or somebody in their family, in their social circle, in their community, in their church, in their own home. I know people in my life that need to hear that. You are not stuck. If you will get raw, real, honest, authentic, and vulnerable with yourself in your own mirror, your life can unfold in absolutely beautiful ways, which yours did. Because we go from the scandal to the redemption. And you make sense of all of it through that. You get sober through all of that, you forgive yourself and others through that. And part of that was your ex-husband passed as well, and you had to become the strong one again for your children, for their dad.

Ashley Jo: 1:10:56

I'm so, so grateful that I found sobriety and recovery when I did. Because I look at when Ryan passed away, I was like three years just shy of three years sober. And I think about what would have happened with my kids if I was still in that dark place. Would I have been able to be there for them? Would I have been able to survive the grief associated with an ex-spouse dying? Because there is a tremendous amount of grief associated with that that people don't talk about. And in in my case, even probably more so because I felt like I was the reason for his relapse in the first place, right? Because he was sober until I had an affair. So a logical conclusion, someone could say, well, Ryan relapsed because of what Ashley did, right? Even though I know that's not the true full story. That's what I believed in my head. So I had to go through a grieving process and hold space for my kids to go through theirs and also like proceed with a little bit of caution because I have a new husband who's incredible and wonderful and amazing. And he's sitting here going, What is going on here? Suddenly I'm hearing these wonderful, amazing stories about this guy who could sell ice to an Eskimo who was everybody's best friend. But all I knew about him before today was how horrible he was to you, how much you guys didn't get along, and how crappy the end of your marriage was. It was like whiplash, right? Like, what's actually happening? And the gratitude that comes out of my story is like, if I hadn't been sober, there's no way I would have been able to navigate the death of Ryan, walking my kids through that grief, and navigating it with my husband, which if I'm being fully transparent, which I've been nothing but this entire episode, that was hard on my marriage. Like, no marriage signs up for that. And like he's the stepfather to my kids. And now he's trying to figure out like, whoa, now that dad line just got a little weirder because now dad died, and here I am. It is just so full of landmines everywhere. And you're gonna step on one and it's gonna explode, but you don't know when you're gonna step on it. So there's an extreme amount of gratitude that I found sobriety because I never ever would have been able to navigate that chaos during a very still beautiful time in my life, right? Yeah. Wow.

Erin: 1:13:31

I feel like I need time to just process so much of this. It's a heartbreaking and beautiful at the exact same time, every step of it. Like I can see and feel and experience the moments where it's just heavy and heartbreaking. But then I look at you and I hear you, and I I see just this redemption and the joy and the gratitude. And sometimes it's so hard to imagine or believe that those things can coexist, but they can. And they do. And they do.

Ashley Jo: 1:14:05

Yeah, my mom always used to say to me, You could never make a movie about your life because people would watch it and they would be like, There's no way all of this happened to the same person. There's just no way, right? But I think that's what a that's what makes the story entertaining, but it also brings a piece of like real life to it, where some people just get a really bad hand dealt to them. And it's how they play those cards and what they do with them that determines like the outcome of their life. But even through all the heartbreak and all the sorrow, and this is the biggest reason why I wrote the book, there were and are still moments of joy, but you have to look for them.

Kellie: 1:14:52

Yeah.

Ashley Jo: 1:14:52

And I think sometimes we get so lost in our grief and our shame and our struggle and our sorrow that our eyes become closed and we can't see the joy that's out there. You have to have your eyes open to see the joy that exists in your life, and it can exist right next to sorrow.

Erin: 1:15:15

Yeah, and you don't have to feel guilty for feeling that way. And I think that that's another layer of all of this is that so often when we are grieving from the outside looking in, there's this expectation then that you're just sad, right? And so when we do smile and laugh and find joy and gratitude through that, for the people that don't understand it, you just don't know what you don't know, right? And so it's hard sometimes for ourselves, but certainly then for other people to kind of comprehend that two things can be true and that they can coexist, like you said so beautifully, they can be right next to each other.

Kellie: 1:16:00

The image that popped into my head as you were describing that was joy and sorrow holding hands or a yin and a yang. We need the adversity, we need the moments of difficulty and failure and missteps and miscalculations to learn. That's how we grow. I mean, I have a two-year-old granddaughter and we have a grandson on the way, and we watch this little human being fall and figure out by falling that I can't step off a step that's that high or walk over rocks that are that wobbly or run down a hill that has stickers. You know, you just every single one of us had to learn by falling and getting hurt, but that also teaches us how to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps because we have the capacity and the capability to do it. It's the power of the human spirit. And I love that part of the redemption story is how you leaned in to the next phase of your life that has really become so beautiful. And now your ripple effect is sharing that with the world because your ability to face adversity, to learn from your mistakes, to embrace faith and vulnerability really is a testament to unwavering resilience and determination that we can move forward no matter how difficult life gets or how turbulent it becomes. We just have to choose that. Yeah.

Ashley Jo: 1:17:41

That's what exactly what I was gonna say is at the end of the day, it's a choice. I mean, I always say by the standard of the world, I use like Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory analogy. The world has handed me a golden ticket saying, if you want to stay in bed all day and cry, go for it, girl. If you just want to stay in the bathtub with stuffed animals sitting next to you, go for it, girl. Nobody would blame you. I have a golden ticket to be as sad as I want to be for the rest of my life. But to me, that sounds like a miserable existence. And that is not the choice that I want to make. And I want to choose, like I said earlier, to take all of this pain and heartbreak and sorrow to find purpose in it, to share this journey as honestly as I can to help someone else who's in a moment of struggle, of sorrow, of heartbreak. And the feedback that I've gotten from people who've read it has just been so humbling, where like they relate to it in so many ways and they've been vulnerable and exposed to me. Here's what's going on in my life. Things I would have never guessed, would have never ever known had I not been brave enough to take that first step and to share with transparency, honesty, and with humility.

Kellie: 1:19:05

What do you want the person listening who feels broken to know today?

Ashley Jo: 1:19:10

You're stronger than you think you are, you're doing better than you think you are, and there is hope. It's only a couple steps away. I love that.

Erin: 1:19:19

I do too. When you look back at your journey, your whole story, is there anything that stands out for you that you are most proud of yourself for?

Ashley Jo: 1:19:34

I think you have probably already said it. I am the most proud of myself for being willing to expose this much of my internal being to the world. It takes guts and it takes courage and it takes being like, we're gonna do this and we're just gonna move forward no matter what. And like we're real people, right? My my husband is a real man, he exists, and I'm sharing our. Family's mess with the world. And that takes a lot of courage to do that. And so I'm proud that I was willing and able and ready to do the hard work to get to the point where I could sit down and I could write through this journey. And then I realized as I was reading it back that this is a really, really beautiful story if you really look at it from the right vantage point. Even though it seems that many parts really messy and really ugly and really nasty, it's a really beautiful story. And then I look and I'm like, that's my story. It's pretty cool. It almost feels like an out-of-body experience to read what I went through. I feel like I'm reading it from an outsider's perspective and I'm being invited into like the most vulnerable moments that someone experienced. And I'm just proud that that's what the N piece looks like. I don't really know how it got there, but it did.

Kellie: 1:21:00

I think what's so wonderful about that is that it's a real story. Yeah. It's your story. And your story and your willingness to be open, honest, raw, and authentic about it is what's going to have the greatest lasting impact, not just on the rest of your life and your family's life moving forward from here. Think about all the lives that this will touch. You may know, you may never know. But again, it goes back to the ripples.

Ashley Jo: 1:21:34

Which I think is the coolest thing in the world. One of my favorite quotes is you never know how far reaching something you may say, think, or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow. And like, that's this, right? Like I heard a quote the other day that said that most people are only remembered for two generations past themselves. And that's like really sad if you think about it. And I was like, there's no way that's right. And then I started thinking, wait, I know about my grandparents and I know about my great-grandparents. I don't know about my great-great-grandparents. And I maybe know one story about one really great, great, great, great, but not a lot, right? And I was like, how cool is it gonna be that like my kids' kids and then their kids and then their kids and their kids can have this thing to read to be like, hey, that's where we came from. You know what I mean? And that's what we survived and the generational trauma that we overcame. It's a really, really cool thing. And I feel like that's why you ladies are doing this podcast too, to have a legacy that remains beyond your life. Because we're all gonna die. It's the only thing that's it's it's always gonna happen, everybody, no matter what. Right.

Kellie: 1:22:43

To look back and say, "Oh my gosh, our great great grandmother was so strong and brave and confident and resilient. And look at what she overcame. And I've come from that, I'm made of that. That DNA pumps inside of my blood."

Ashley Jo: 1:23:01

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:23:02

"That heartbeat beats inside of my own chest every single day."

Erin: 1:23:07

Yes. And then hopefully inspires them and people to acknowledge and accept the fact that no matter how turbulent life is, you're gonna be okay. And also hopefully inspires that spirit of transparency and honesty. Because, like, think about generations down the line, right? Who have this memoir to read and to know about you, to know that you faced adversity, you learned from your mistakes, you were vulnerable, and it just led you into this place of just resilience. And it is your legacy. It's why we wanted you here to share this story and to continue to impact the world, the people around you. And the reach is far beyond our listener base. You are a beautiful, inspiring human, and I am so grateful that you joined us today.

Ashley Jo: 1:24:08

Thank you. It has been so fun. I love conversations like this where we're just open and honest and share all the things. So it's been a pleasure.

Kellie: 1:24:19

Well, and it was you being willing to put your story out publicly... "Hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own" that connected with us. And now we all know each other. We get to support one another on this beautiful, messy journey called life. As women, as mothers, there's nothing more powerful and meaningful than that. Just be human. So as we come to a close today, we ask all of our listeners if you have a P I G. And that could be P-I and G words that really mean something to you. That could be when you think about purpose, intention, and gratitude, how you're living your life or what resonates with you. So we'd love to hear yours. And then we also want you to share how people can connect with you and get the book. All right.

Ashley Jo: 1:25:12

So when I look at P-I-G, it's all of them, right? You felt all of them infuse into my story, but I would say the biggest one is purpose. I've said again and again, I had to find a way to put purpose to my pain because without a purpose, which mine is helping other people who are in the middle of their really sad story and don't know what to do and can't see the light of day and don't know how to make it through and feel like they are sinking to the bottom of the ocean with weights tied to them and they think they're gonna drown. My purpose is to show them that if I made it through, you can too, right? And my purpose is also to pass that on to my children. It was super fun. I was uh listening to my audiobook, and it was a part of the book that would be okay for my eight-year-old to listen to. It was part of Case's story, and I said a line in it where I was like, and I didn't think I was gonna survive. And she grabbed my hand and she said, But you did, mommy, but you did. Right? To be able to pass those things on to our kids that a, she can see that it's okay to say, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through, but you can say that and you can still make it, right? You can still be okay. You can feel like you're not gonna be okay, but you can still be okay, and it's also okay to not be okay, to teach that to my kids too. That every emotion that comes up in the journey of life is okay to feel and to sit in and to allow ourselves to navigate. And I could just talk about that all day, but instead, I will just say if anybody wants to find the book, they can find it on Amazon or on my website, which is this is Ashleyjoe.com, and it's A-S-H-L-E-Y. Joe is J O. And my Instagram is this is Ashley Joe as well.

Erin: 1:27:08

And we will absolutely link that in our show notes. We want people to dive deeper into your story and this beautiful memoir. I do not think that there is a piece of your story that every single human could relate to. There's an element of your story in all of us. It's so relatable.

Ashley Jo: 1:27:33

Thank you.

Erin: 1:28:10

If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn and connect further at thePIGpodcast.com.

Kellie: 1:28:25

And if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review, or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work.

Erin: 1:28:40

Because the PIG isn't just a podcast. It's a place to remember that even in the midst of grief, life goes on, resilience matters, and love never leaves. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time, hogs and kisses everyone!