Ashley Simpson: Time for Some Good Simpson Luck

Over the past four years, I've taken an amazing virtual journey to hell and back with my cousins John and Cindy. It started with a Facebook post from John's sister, Julie Major.

Her niece, Ashley, had disappeared from her home in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. 

I didn't know I had a cousin named Ashley. I didn't even know I had a cousin named John.

Over these past few years, I've gotten to know them very well; they allowed me into the inner sanctum of their family and their pain. They gave me the privilege of telling Ashley's story warts and all.

The journey has been horrendous at times. It's difficult watching people you care about sit with a pain that never leaves them, to see them leaning toward the phone waiting for police calls, to worry that John would get into a fight with a boyfriend that didn't call the police for a week after Ashley left him.

It was always something. John qualified for EI under a relatively obscure provision that allows parents of murdered children a leave of absence from work, only to have it taken away because he left the province to go to B.C. to go look for her. 

He had a good summer gig at a resort ripped away from him by a tornado that literally lifted the roof off the old log house.
It's always something. 

I worry about the health of both John and Cindy.

Last week, John was working on a ship, and suddenly, he was gripped with unfathomable pain. He could barely walk or sit. Hours later, he went under the knife for a perforated colon. Cindy had to drop everything and meet him in Goderich, where they will stay for a week while John gets used to a colostomy bag he will have to wear for months.

Cindy has had her own health troubles. A little while back, she had emergency surgery for a nearly burst appendix. Now she's looking at more tests in the coming days.

Like me, Cindy and John don't have full time jobs. They work with ships on the Welland Canal cooking for crews. Their livelihood will be put on hold for a while til they get back on their feet. More money going out than coming in.

With all that's happened, I so admire their strength in the face of adversity. They continue to fundraise for Murdered and Missing Women, and shelters in Niagara. They might have to miss the 4th Annual Ashley Simpson golf tourney this month, thought it is fortunately in the capable hands of daughter Amanda and Ashley's friends.
The Simpsons would give the shirts off their back for their kids and grandkids.

And Ashley is always hovering in the background. Out of sight, but never out of mind.

She haunts us still. She whispers in our ears. 

Never give up. Never.

Ashley has been sitting on my shoulder in the past few days.

I wrote a television pitch for a documentary open call for proposals.

I thought of Ashley. And John. And Cindy.

In spite of my own fears, and feelings of inadequacy, I found the strength to plow through the paperwork. Last Wednesday, I pressed send.

An hour after that I got the news that John was sick.

Oh no, I thought. Covid-19.

We can't lose John, too. 

"I've never been in so much pain my entire life," he wrote me.

"We need you," I wrote back. "We have to get back to Salmon Arm in the spring."

Gladly, he didn't have Covid, just a really annoying and painful bathroom issue.
Maybe it's a sign.
Maybe good luck is about to come his way.
It's time for some Good Simpson Luck for a change.