march 1.2002 » Just out 1 g
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ortland lesbian Krystal Ashling will
participate in a three-day walkathon
starting May* 17 in Boston to raise
money for breast cancer treatment.
Never having had the disease herself,
the 54-year-old social worker nonetheless feels
compassion toward the women w'ho have lived
with and died from it.
Ashling has worked for Southwest Washing
ton Medical Center for seven years and has seen
her share of suffering. “Because of being
involved in hospice,” she says, “I’m really quite
aware of the impact [breast cancer] tends to
have.”
Although Ashling has participated in other
walks and marathons, the upcoming event will
be her biggest yet. Organized by Pallotta Team-
Works, a for-profit company that raises money
for myriad causes, the Avon Breast Cancer
Three-Day Walk will require walking 20 miles a
day with thousands of other people.
Ashling must raise $1,900 by April 19 and is
reaching her goal primarily by sending letters to
friends and family requesting support. The
money will help give women with undetected
hreast cancer the resources to find out early
enough to survive.
Last year, Ashling saw the movie Pay It For-
ward and began asking herself what she could do
to change the world. “1 was thinking: ‘What can
I do that would be like that? W hat could I do
that would be giving more than I could even
imagine?’ ”
As she searched for an answer, she came
across the Pallotta TeamWorks mission state
ment. “I read it and I just started crying,” Ash
ling says. “I knew that I had found the thing that
1 needed to do.” Ashling recently underwent
knee surgery and suffers from arthritis, so the
P
After a move to Salem, Ashling finally con
tacted a lawyer she saw advertised in a magazine.
“1 read that she said she knew how to find fami
lies,” she says. “I just called her and [asked if she
had] any ideas.”
After Ashling mentioned her husband had
been remarried and divorced again, the lawyer
encouraged her to contact the second wife’s
family. “So 1 called the parents of his ex-wife,
and they were only too glad to tell me where the
kids were. T hat’s how I ended up finding them.”
S urvival S tory
A tragic past inspires a bright future for Krystal Ashling
by Sarah Leimert
walk will be a serious commitment for her to
take on.
T
oday, Ashling is living happily in Southeast
Portland with her partner, Marlene. But
her life has involved a great deal of personal
struggle and misfortune. In fact, the horrific
experience she endured 20 years ago might play
a big part in her current commitment to com
passionate civic duty.
W hen Ashling came out in 1976, she was
living in Eugene and married with three chil
dren, Dimitri, Rebecca and Marina. When she
and her husband split, the court denied her cus
tody of the kids and granted it to their father.
Furthermore, it ordered that when she was
visiting with her children, no other lesbians
could be present. This ruling meant the rela
tionship her kids had formed with her friends
had to be severed immediately.
Just as Ashling was getting accustomed to
this hostile legal environment, things got even
worse. In 1980, her ex-husband disappeared
without a trace, taking her children with him.
She was unaware of her kids’ whereabouts or sta
Krystal Ashling’s ex-husband and three children
tus for eight years.
disappeared without a trace in 1980
During that time, Ashling was plagued with
something strong and solid to hold onto, as
nightmares, depression and anxiety that took over
everything else she depended upon fell apart.
her life. Financial woes made it impossible for her
She liked the connotations of “Krystal" and
to begin a nationwide search for her children.
made the switch.
She even changed her name— she needed
shling is now in regular contact with her
children. She is training Dimitri and Mari
na for walking the Portland Marathon. She is
doing the Avon walk with her partner’s daugh
ter Lois, and Rebecca and Marina are arranging
a benefit function for the event.
Rebecca and her partner recently had a
child, so Ashling is now a grandmother as well.
She couldn’t be happier.
Ashling says the process of reacquainting her
self with her children has been long and slow. “1
think that it will probably take the rest of our
lives to heal everything,” she says. “But it’s won
derful to have them in my life now— to be able
to teach them the things that I’ve learned about
physical fitness, about being healthy and about
believing in yourself, being able to stick to some
thing that you want. Knowing that underneath
you are good and that you’re valuable.” jH
A
To sponsor Ashling for the A von BREAST
C ancer T hree -D ay W a lk , make a donation at
w w w .bethepeople.com . She can be contacted at
krystala@ m ac.com .
SARAH L eimert is a Portland free-lance writer.
E-mail her at scleimert@earthhnk.net.
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