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By LIZZIE BOWEN | Staff Writer

Standing triumphantly in a sea of sunflowers, Ashley Wheeler smiles as she grazes the field in thought of their strength and power.

“I love sunflowers,” Ashley said. “I like the story of how they grow.”

Ashley identified with how sunflowers grow out of stress and turmoil and when they finally do sprout and grow, they are strong. Their roots are solid and can withstand anything the world might make them weather. Above all else, they are beautiful.

Changing lives

The farm is quiet as she tells of her passion to help others and work toward a world in which women and children who have fallen victim to a household full of domestic violence are able to find solace in her story.

Ashley first started her nonprofit A2Z Hope Inc. in 2017 to help women and children who have suffered from domestic violence. Ashley said it was difficult to get the nonprofit started because she feared what others might think when she came forward with her story. She worried about the reactions of family, friends and others.

“I finally said I was going to do it in 2017,” Ashley said. “That is when I got it established, but I sat on it for about three or four years because I was afraid, kind of embarrassed and dealing with all kind of emotional rollercoasters.”

Ashley said that the childhood neglect she experienced in her youth also worked as a roadblock to getting her nonprofit started. The same neglect she experienced in childhood was exactly what she felt like might occur in her adult life. She feared that nobody would care about her nonprofit or offer any kind of support.

Furthermore, throughout the process of getting her A2Z started, Ashley was riddled with recollections of the past.

“At some point just think, ‘Is anybody going to even care about the situation?’ I noticed growing up, when we heard my dad abusing my mom, remember feeling some feelings of embarrassment,” she said. “I remember feelings of embarrassment to go to school.”

Growing through the pain

Ashley said that when she was growing up, she felt isolated by her peers in school due to the fact that they all had the knowledge that her mother was being abused and even had heard it occurring at times.

“I have three brothers and we would be outside playing,” she said. “The situation would happen between my mom and dad, and all my friends would hear the commotion and our play time was cut short. We would have to go in the house.”

Ashley tearfully recalls how peers reacted throughout her childhood in regards to the abuse of her mother.

“We got made fun of a lot,” she said.

Ashley said that the pain of conquering the embarrassment and trauma isn’t a linear experience and the healing process seems to be forever ongoing.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t say it is 100 percent healed,” she said. “I just always dealt with things my whole life.”

Just like the sunflowers that withstand the heat and wind, Ashley self-identified as a very tough person.

“I am a pretty strong person,” she said. “I just ignore things and move on with my life, do things that make me happy and not worry about what people say. At a certain point, it does start to weigh on you, but I find things I enjoy to do and that helps.”

A voice for others

Who Ashley is today is exactly the kind of person she wished would come and save her as a child.

“I wanted to start this because I wanted to be a voice and bring awareness to domestic violence,” Ashley said. “Being a child growing up and having to go through an abusive home situation, one day I decided I wanted to be a voice for other kids who could be going through the same thing growing up.”

Ashley said that the kind of trauma that can come from growing up in a household of abuse is one that doesn’t fade throughout time and often, stays with you far beyond childhood.

“I just decided that dealing with the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it, even with me being an adult now,” Wheeler said. “The past trauma, it still carries on with your through your entire life.”

Ashley said that doing this type of work helps in her own personal journey of self-healing and recovery.

“It also helps me,” she said. “It helps me cope, helping others, helping women and children, it continually helps me.”

Ashley implored anyone who is going through a similar situation to what she experienced to try and hold out hope as there is hope all around us.

“There is help,” Ashley said. “There is hope. You can deal with it.”

She said she now feels like a voice to the voiceless, which is something she wish she had growing up.

“I feel like back then I could have used a person like me,” she said. “Someone that I could go to and talk to when I was down and out or depressed.”

Ashley is now a house mom and wife of a professional athlete and has a whole new outlook on her childhood experience now that she is a mother herself. She has a son who is seven years old whom she wholeheartedly adores.

“He is pretty much the only thing that keeps me going and one of the reasons I continue to push,” she said. “I would also like to have him involved as well (in A2Z) to help me cope which he has been doing since I became a mother. He has been my pride and joy throughout the whole situation.”

Ashley has been surprised by the support system she has received throughout the process of started her nonprofit and was especially surprised to receive the support of her father specifically.

“I have a pretty good support system, everybody supports me,” she said. “My mom, she absolutely loves that I’m doing this. Pretty much everybody is supportive, even my dad.”

The main source of trauma in Ashley’s life was her father so watching him become a beacon of support throughout the process of starting A2Z was a shocking, but beautiful twist.

“When I first mentioned to him that I was starting this, he was happy for me,” she said. “He apologized for things that he had done and told me that this is something good for me to be doing and that helped me.”

Ashley originally said she feared the reaction or her father in starting A2Z as she assumed there would be some kind of backlash.

“I was afraid that he might be upset,” she said. “But he was quite supportive.”

The strength of a mother

Renee Taylor is the mother of Ashley Wheeler and said she hopes that she can with alongside Ashley and bring other victims of domestic violence to a safe haven.

“My advice is to seek help,” Renee said. “Just try to get out and get out of that situation. Because things are not going to get better. I stayed, thinking that things would get better and knowing that they wouldn’t. But you don’t see that at the moment. It’s time to go, and you need to get out. It just gets worse and worse. My advice is: it’s time to get out.”

Renee had certain coping mechanisms that she leaned into when she was undergoing her abuse and says she equates a lot of her resilience and survival to God and to her children.

“It is rough, and I thank God each and every day that I made it out alive,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that did not.”

As with many victims, it took Renee time to realize the gravity of her situation and the necessity to seek safety elsewhere.

“It took a while,” she said. “Family will try to tell you, but you’re not listening or hearing that, you’re just staying in it. I had finally just come to my senses, and I thank the Lord for that because some didn’t even make it to see that. So, I thank the Lord each and every day that I made it to get out of that situation.”

Renee said she believes that these struggles have made her stronger and that the healing process for something as brutalizing as domestic violence is not one that is linear.

“It is an ongoing thing,” Renee said. “It is always going to be there. It’s hard. You go through depression and anxiety. It makes you strong because you can speak on it and try to help somebody else that is going through it.”

Renee believes God has held her through these events and that it is never worth it to stay with an abuser, but she understands being stagnant and not being able to remove yourself from a situation that is actively hurting someone. Renee has a special sort of empathy that comes from a place of no judgement as she knows what it’s like to feel stuck with an abuser.

Prayers for tomorrow

“Ask the Lord to give you strength, and look to God,” Renee said. “It is tough, and I know I didn’t come right up out of it. It took time before I came to my sense, I can relate to someone else, but it is not worth it. It is not worth your life.”

Renee believes she can now worth as an advocate for people who have fallen victim to abuse and fight for them to find their sense of strength and power.

“I’m one of the strong survivors,” she said. “It was a tough situation because I am the type that would leave and go through it, and you would talk to them on the phone and they would say they aren’t going to do it anymore. There’s a lot that they try to manipulate and try to tell you. I was weak. But now I am strong.”

The phrase “I am weak, but now am strong” is a powerful one and obviously a direct reference to the song “Jesus Loves Me” about feeling weak, but finding a sense of strength through time and she gives advice to others who might be struggling.

“Look up to God,” she said. “That is the main one to look up to and bring you out of the situation. That is the main Person you need to look for strength.”

Finding peace

Renee has four children, three sons and one daughter, Ashley Wheeler being the only daughter in the family. She said she knows that all the things her children witness in their younger years still affect them today. They go through the trauma together as a unit and as a family and work as an outlet for each other.

“They all come up in it and are damaged today with it,” she said. “They go through depression and anxiety.”

The most beautiful thing about this journey is finding peace which Renee says she has. She has found her inner peace despite day-to-day triggers occurring.

“I have overcome it,” she said. “I have found my peace. I do know things are not going to go away, but the main thing is I thank God that I came up out of that environment and we’re not having to go through that again. I would pray, ‘If I ever get up out of this, God. I will never try to get back in this again,’ my main focus was just my kids and if we can be strong enough to make it through this.”

Renee says she is inspired by Ashley and realizes how important it is to stand by Ashley as Ashley works to bring a haven to victims of domestic violence through A2Z nonprofit.

“I feel like it was a really good idea for (all of) what she has started up,” Renee said. “Now it is time for me to open up and be by her side and to try help support her.”

Darrius Taylor is the son of Renee Taylor and the oldest of the four children. Darrius said a majority of the weight was put on her mother. He speaks about his younger years and how he was aware of the situation they were going through as children.

“It was obvious,” he said. “I would advise to tell someone, I understand that you love your parents and love your family, but try to get your parents to understand how serious it is and how much it affects you as a child and as an adult as well.”

Despite it all, Darrius says he has sought reconciliation throughout everything that has happened and is not bitter about his past or angry anymore about anything that he has been put through. The high road is one he seems to relish in taking, and his strength and endurance is evident as he speaks.

“I know how I feel, obviously,” he said. “And I feel like I forgave him. I do think about it, and yes, it hurts me. But at the end of the day, me as a 34-year old I understand that it is the past, and it is still my father. There is no reason to hate him forever. I won’t get my blessing like that. I found my peace.”

Peace is the message that the Ashley, Darrius and Renee give to those reading. The message of hope and healing is one that rings throughout the air with every word they speak. Hope is in the sunflowers Ashley stands before and in the triumphant voice of her mother. It is in the voice of her brother who has forgiven and stood strong in his peace and prominence. Healing is the note that we end on.

In the words of Ashley Wheeler herself, “there is help. There is hope.” Ashley’s nonprofit A2Z continues to advocate for victims and to give a voice to those who are voiceless. Ashley has found that voice. And just like a sunflower, she rises again.