The Before Time
Driven
I started working in the family business when I was 15. I started my own company selling books to schools when I was a teenager. In 2000 a started the only parasail company North Texas. In 2001 I started a moving company. I always felt the need to accomplish. The entrepreneurial spirit burned in me. I was driven.
Success and the Perfect life
By 2007 my moving company was very successful, I had branches and Dallas, Austin and Houston. I had a beautiful French wife, and four brilliant, adorable children that I loved more than anything. I owned cars, trucks, and boats, and lived in a six-bedroom house on two acres in an affluent neighborhood by the lake. The trajectory of my life was good, I poured my time and money right back into my business. I spent as much time as I could with my family; I should have spent more.
I thought I had hit bottom, but my life was really perfect.
I went bankrupt and lost most everything. I went through a hostile divorce and custody battle. My wife had left me for a Pentecostal pastor. I was emotionally devastated. I thought my life was at the bottom. I did not know how perfect my life really was. My precious children slept in warm beds under my roof. I had my kids, I had my drive, I had my innate ability to earn money, but all I could see was everything that I had lost. When you think you’ve lost everything and have hit bottom? That bottom can fall through into an inky black abyss that threatens to swallow you up.
A single moment
A single moment can change the course of your life. A single moment in time can destroy what you hold most dear. After my daughter’s death I felt sure I would die. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I felt like razor blades were the chambers of my heart. With each beat they cut deeper, and deeper. How it possible that I’m still alive, I remember thinking to myself. How could I hurt this bad and still suck air, and pump blood? Why could I not just die, death could not be any worse than this. A knife in my heart could not be any more painful. My physical heart ached, and yet it still beat.
Grow or Die
Some events in life leave you only two options: make the most of your life, doing something important to help others, or the exact opposite, just let go and slip into that inky blackness of emotional abyss. There is no middle ground to live a normal life. The death of my daughter was more than I could bear, but sometimes when your soul is sucked down a black hole, it is ejected out the other side. One of the biggest emotional accomplishments that I have made in my life is the reconciling of opposites. I can take full responsibility for my daughter’s death, and still go on living. I can bubble with remorse and regret from the bottom of my soul, and still, somehow have a future; I can still live my life. I want to weave the tapestry of words that I have a good heart, that I have love, and I have grown my soul. I want to engender compassion, and empathy. I want to believe that somehow my life is not defined by the worst moment of my life.
New Hope and Purpose
I have read hundreds of books during my time in prison. I have spent countless hours reflecting on the meaning of life, and the "Why." I have tried to understand, but have learned that sometimes you just can't. I believe I can have a future and help people. I believe good will be done in my daughter's name with the foundation I started. Ashley will be remembered.