In Touch With Relationships

Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

“Growing relationships is a lot like gardening. We sow seeds of kindness through seeing every person as one created in the image of God and thus kin to us. We sow words of kindness by speaking the truth in love. We do deeds of kindness by actively treating every person with compassion and respect as we would like to be treated.” These words are quoted from the Christian devotional magazine issue of The Upper Room, March-April 2022.

We cannot choose our family, we all know that. That's not how it works. There are those of us who were born into family drama, trauma, and whatever else we choose to call it, and we go from there with the family we have inherited. There is good talk within a family, but the bad talk gets whispered about and put on mute when somebody who does not need to know comes into the whispering space. But sometimes, it is good to talk about it. It is a way of forgiving and healing oneself.

Ashley C. Ford, is an author on the New York Times best-selling list for her memoir, “Somebody’s Daughter.” She was in her hometown of Fort Wayne on April 14th at the ACPL main library. Ashley’s book has received outstanding book reviews since its publication in May 2021. This is not a book review by me. You can Google her book and read all about what others think of it. My interpretation of the reading of her book is my thoughts and its relationship to kindness, speaking the truth, compassion, and respect.

Ashley was not five years old when her father was incarcerated for a crime that deserved a long prison term. She was a teenager when she found out why he had been jailed for twenty years. In the whisperings was that secret. She was not close to her mother; but her mother had her problems, and Ashley was too young to realize, recognize or understand how any of that adult drama affected her mother’s behavior at that time. So, Ashley struggled through her relationship with her mother during her childhood and youth, and as an adult, the relationship is now becoming one of kindness, compassion, truth, and respect. She loved her grandmother, her siblings, aunts, uncles, and her cousins with good, and sometimes not so good memories, within that circle of family.

Into her garden of growing relationships, she made friends; however, there was one who betrayed her, and she talks openly about it in her book. Her teachers came into her garden during her elementary and secondary educational years and planted seeds of encouragement, and then she was off to Ball State University to continue to plant and grow her garden.

It was not too long before her “Garden of Relationships” propelled her to tell the story of her young life through the seeds that had been planted in her garden, which had matured to fruition, and gave Ashley the courage to author her book. It has put her on the road to forgiveness and healing. It would be an informative book for discussion.

Ashley has written for Teen Vogue, New York magazine, The New York Times, Elle, BuzzFeed and other web and print publications. She is a young thirtysomething, and there will be more memories to write about; but at this time, this is where she is here and now.