Ashley Simpson: Hoping for a Christmas Miracle

I keep thinking about my family.

My sons, Stefan and Nick, who are nearly Ashley's age.

My daughter, Marissa, the young mother.

My granddaughters, Skylar and Kennedy.

And I simply cannot imagine the pain that John and Cindy are feeling right now.

I spoke to Cindy early in the week, and she said the 30th day of every month is hardest for her. That was the day in April that she learned her daughter Ashley was missing, and she had to make that terrible call to the RCMP to plead for their help.

I spoke to John this week as well. He'd just read my blog and remembered the pink suitcase that Ashley reportedly was seen carrying as she headed out of Silver Creek, only to disappear. He'd forgotten about the suitcase, and corrected me. It wasn't a small suitcase; it was a large one that didn't quite latch. He simply couldn't imagine how she could negotiate the road with it.

And then he said something else, about a shoe that he and the search party had found, a shoe that was Ashley's size and had been bought at the thrift store where she shopped. It must have fallen out of the suitcase, he said. It was the last thing he touched that had touched his daughter.

This Christmas, John and Cindy are simply trying to get through their lives. Cindy is working on a ship as a cook. When I spoke to John, he was prepping a church dinner. Every day, they cry.

Cindy thinks about that phone call. John thinks about that shoe.

There is no closure for these folks, or the friends and family of Ashley Simpson who has been gone as long as Cindy had carried her in her belly. Nine months. How excruciating.

I wanted to do something different with this blog.

I wanted to put something up so we, the people who care about Ashley -- and judging from the viewers of my blog they are in the thousands -- can feel closer to her in this Christmas season.

I asked Cindy, then John.

Here's what we came up with.
In the meantime, we're all praying for a Christmas miracle.