Letter To Heaven

Ashlynn's balloon message.

To 16-year-old Ashlynn Marracino, who lives in Whittier, CA, life hasn't really felt complete. Her dad died in 2008 from a brain aneurysm. It was sudden and he was still a young father. When you experience a loss that deep. you also grieve because there's this big hole in your heart, which that loved one leaves behind. It can take years sometimes, to move on in life.

When you have a complicated relationship with that loved one, that can prolong the grief and make it even more difficult to get your life back on track. It's definitely a more difficult road. Ashlynn had regrets about her relationship with her father. The road with him had not always been easy. Dad had spent some time in jail and sent his young daughter many pictures to keep the relationship going, mostly ignored by Ashlynn.



Even after her dad had been released from jail, Ashlynn ignored some of his phone calls. So it was with his last phone call. In the fragility of life, none of us really knows which phone call or contact with a loved one will be the last. It's a regret that can easily come to any of us.

It's been some years now since her father died, but there is one thing that Ashlynn is doing. She writes a letter on a balloon and sends it up to the heavens, with hope, to keep her connection with him still concrete. This is a wonderful technique to help anyone through the grieving process, saying the things left unsaid in a letter to a dead loved one.

So, this year the balloon went up - and it landed in a place never intended - the parking lot of the LOCAL HEROES RESTAURANT in Auburn, CA, some 450 miles away from the launch spot. One of restaurant owner Lisa Swisley's customers found the balloon letter and they read it together.  Lisa said, "We started reading it, my co-worker and I, realized what it was and we got kind of teary. It was very sad to us that she was missing her dad so much. I just thought I wanted to reach out to her."

Luckily, Ashlynn had signed her name and Lisa did an online search. She then posted the story on PAY IT FORWARD IN AUBURN's facebook page. There was a huge response, with many responders wanting to send cards and gifts to Ashlynn. There was even a gift from the college which Ashlynn wants to attend after high school, Humboldt State.

It was an outpouring of support from a community miles away and it somehow made dad's love more real and was a sign that her dad noticed.

Ashlynn with her dad in the last year of his life.

Thanks to this article from CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/teens-letter-to-dad-in-heaven-gets-a-response/. and to this article from the Today Show: http://www.today.com/parents/balloon-letter-heaven-answered-kind-strangers-1D80424933.

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