Life Sketch

Life Sketch by: Savanna & Willow Norton

On behalf of our family, we thank all of you who have been so generous and kind both this past week and in the past in helping our family through some challenging experiences.

We are going to pull back the curtain a bit and share things we have never openly talked about. This is a celebration of a life well lived, but at times was defined by pain and suffering for our family. The opening hymn, Lead Kindly Light, was one of Aspen’s favorite hymns. Today’s closing is our dad’s favorite and perhaps unorthodox for a service, but we all felt Aspen would want us to march forward for Christ.

What you will see in this life sketch is someone in deep pain and suffering who then used her life to comfort and help others in pain. We are going to share some painful things because our family wants you to understand Aspen’s amazing life, and her firm reliance on Jesus Christ.

Aspen Marie Norton was born August 5, 1997.

From an early age, our parents knew she was a special soul. In her baby blessing, our father felt prompted to pronounce that she had brought her testimony with her from the pre-mortal life which she displayed every day.

One early memory of Aspen, which was a premonition of the life she would live, was our parents picking her up from the nursery at church and the nursery leaders telling them how loving it was that where most children would find toys to play with, Aspen would see someone else crying and go find toys to bring them to comfort them. This was Aspen.

Her empathy also created funny situations. While living in Logan while our mom was pregnant with me, she had morning sickness pretty bad. My parents were living in an apartment and the main floor layout was the living room connected to the kitchen through a short hallway with a bathroom through the hallway door. One morning while our parents were talking in that hallway, Aspen came down the stairs into the living room, and ran past our parents shoving them out of the way in a beeline to the bathroom. My parents were concerned and followed her. She immediately went to the toilet and started pretending to be sick into the toilet. After a few tries, she calmly got up, smiled, and went into the kitchen for breakfast. She wanted mom to know that she understood what she was going through.

Years ago in this ward, during a fast and testimony meeting, we were sitting a few rows back from the pulpit. Amy Curtin was at the stand bearing her testimony and crying from emotion. Aspen was playing with a small stretchy rubber snake and while stretching it, launched it through the air and hit Amy in the face. As Aspen felt the eyes of the ward shift onto her, she promptly turned her head, looking around with a puzzled look on her face as if searching to see who behind her launched that snake into Amy’s face.

In her younger years, she was an energetic child. She loved to play soccer, make friends, and enjoyed music.

Aspen loved to climb up on our dad’s chair in the computer room, have our dad put a song on the computer, and she would massage his back while beating out the tune. Dad didn’t mind that at all.

Her love and talent for music was obvious, but became pronounced when one day our dad was upstairs and heard beautiful music coming from downstairs. He literally thought, “who purchased a CD and is playing it this early in the morning?” When he came out of the bedroom, he was shocked to see 12 year old Aspen playing at the piano without any music in front of her. That’s when he realized they needed to get Aspen some piano lessons. Through all her trials and service, she tried to get the music inside of her to the outside. Only a few songs were ever completed and recorded, but she had dozens she had written down the tunes, chords and lyrics for. We will play a couple of her songs today.

Jumping back in time, sometime around age 6-8, she was in our kitchen and screamed in pain doubling over and collapsing to the floor. Shocked, we asked if she was OK and she got up just fine. We had no idea what had happened. This would become part of her life’s difficult journey. It would take years to discover the cause and treatment for what she would endure.

She dropped out of school around 8^th grade as the pains became so intense that she would literally scream in pain all day long without massive amounts of painkillers. She described it as someone driving a knife into her kidneys.

One year she was in the ER 23 times.

Her tolerance for pain medication was so high, she would take ten Percocet at once which would make her pain stop for a few hours and give her a normal life for a time. Then she would run out and the screaming resumed.

Our dad would call home from work to ask our mom how things were going, and he would hear Aspen screaming uncontrollably in the background. He would then walk down the hall at work to an empty office away from everyone where he would kneel in prayer, bawling, and asking God to heal Aspen or take her home. This went on for 18 long months. A few of you here today are aware of this and we greatly appreciate the service you did for our family during that time.

Eventually Aspen began to get the screaming more under control and a friend asked us if we had looked into Lyme disease. We had not, but after working with a specialist, we were told that she did have Lyme disease. Treatment began and we saw her condition improving. After a few months of being treated, the pain was subsiding in duration, but still had some kind of hold on her, so we started looking for therapy for her that might help reduce it.

Around this time, our dad remembers praying one day asking God to let whatever needed to happen, to happen to let Aspen get well the fastest.

A couple weeks later this prayer was set into motion in a most unexpected way.

One day after a particular treatment, our mom and Aspen stopped and got food from McDonald’s and then stopped at the grocery store. My mom went in to pick up a few things while Aspen who was 15 then, sat in the car eating.

When our mom came back out, Aspen was unconscious, the keys were in the ignition with the car running, and the doors were locked.

Frantic, our mom called me at home and I was able to rush another set of keys to the store to open the door. We got Aspen revived but later that evening she began to display signs of pneumonia. When the hospital asked what medication she was on and how much, they were shocked to hear that she had taken14 Roxycodone that day. They said they weren’t capable of treating pediatric pain issues and to take her to Primary Children’s.

Upon sharing the same story there, they immediately contacted the Department of Child and Family Services- DCFS- and within 24 hours we had lost custody of Aspen to the state.

Our parents and Aspen were accused of Munchausen’s syndrome- meaning our parents were accused of convincing Aspen she was sick when she really wasn’t. Our family didn’t think hell had an elevator downwards but they suddenly felt that floor drop several levels when that happened. In state care, authorities did not accept that Aspen had had Lyme disease or that her pain was real. They labeled it psychosomatic and treated her like it was all imagined pain, because our parents needed her to be ill in some twisted way. Aspen did learn to quiet her pain though. She had already been working on that so that her sharp pains were not as vocal, but she would wince visibly as they happened.

After 6 months of working with DCFS, our dad asked Aspen privately during a supervised visit if she still had pain because she seemed to be improving. She said yes but that was concealing it as best she could. He then said she might as well tell the doctors she was working with the truth about it and maybe while she was in care they could figure it out and help her.

As a result of that honesty with her doctors, at the next hearing, DCFS informed the judge that the increased contact between Aspen and her parents had resulted in her having more pain. Because of this, the judge ordered no contact between Aspen and our family for 3 months. It was devastating for Aspen and she learned to keep her mouth shut. Then at the next hearing, DCFS reported that Aspen’s pain had gone away with no contact from our family, so the judge ordered the no contact to continue another 3 months. Aspen thought she might never see her family again and started having thoughts of harming herself. Thankfully, after that 6 months, we could again have limited contact.

Aspen was put into Summit high school, an alternative school for teens. Her nickname there became the “Angel of Summit” because she brought joy and light to everyone. She was a ray of sunshine and touched many lives, even saving some. She loved those that felt no love.

She transferred into a new foster home which was a great blessing to her. Her foster mom, Amy, will be saying the closing prayer today. We love and appreciate the care they had for Aspen. Her foster family told us numerous times about the hours of beautiful music Aspen filled their home with, making our parents somewhat jealous.

After about a year and a half in foster care, Aspen’s therapist uncovered trapped memories that brought a new perspective to the DCFS team and judge. All of a sudden, they realized Aspen’s physical manifestation of pain had an emotionally traumatic origin. In a matter of months, she was released back to us and at the closing hearing, without apology, the judge said, “We can see there’s a lot of love in your family.”

It only took 27 months for the state to come to that assessment.

We could have been very bitter about this, but we came to appreciate the difficult job some of these people had. The DCFS team would constantly tell us how concerned they were for Aspen and how incredible she was. She was not their normal case. We knew that and deeply missed her. We felt robbed of her companionship, but in answer to our dad’s prayer, we now had further insight into Aspen’s emotional pain and treatment.

After returning home, Aspen continued to heal and try to move forward with her life.

Always looking out for others, she heard about a woman who was about to become homeless and invited her to live with us, informing us after the fact. We were shocked, but Aspen had a way of turning your heart to see things through her eyes and we allowed this woman to come live with us for what turned out to be over a year. We did, however, draw the line at her indoor cats. Jodey is here today and part of our family because of Aspen. Then, if we counted right, there were 7 other friends of Aspen’s that we took in for various periods of time. Some of them are here today and we love them because of Aspen.

Aspen later took a job living at an elderly lady’s home to take care of her for about a year and then returned home when this woman had to go into a nursing home for a higher level of care.

Aspen volunteered for the state suicide hotline helping over 200 people who were in need.

She was always concerned for others. She was always concerned for those that had no voice. Recently she purchased flowers so she could perform a memorial service in our backyard for those that were not remembered by anyone.

A few months ago, a friend she had made at Summit who had a serious medical condition, passed away. Sensing that his family might not be able to pull a funeral service together, she spent a week organizing it, getting a ward in Orem to host it, doing the program, and making sure the service was a success, including performing multiple songs during it.

Aspen passed last Friday, May 10th, 2024, early in the morning after having a great Thursday where she met a new therapist she was excited to get started working with at another appointment the next day. She said, “She works like I do, very gentle and respecting agency.” A wonderful friend of our family had an hour long conversation with Aspen that day as well where she boldly stated she was not giving up and would press forward doing Jesus Christ’s will. We are still waiting to get more answers about what happened, but we do know that she loved God and knew Him well, and was welcomed home with outstretched arms.

On Wednesday of this week, I went to Walmart to pick up photos to display here today. As I was sitting in the car afterwards working up the energy to drive home, I started flipping through my phone and wondered if I had any old voicemails from Aspen. There were no recent ones, but as I got back to 2020 I found one. She said, “Hey Savanna, I have a song stuck in my head and I think it’s a church song but can’t remember what it’s called. I’m going to hum a little bit and can you tell me if you recognize it?” She then started humming the song Homeward Bound. I looked up the lyrics and read:

On a quiet misty morning

When the moon has gone to bed,

When the sparrows stop their singing

And the sky is clear and red,

When the summer’s ceased its gleaming

When the corn is past its prime,

When adventure’s lost its meaning –

I’ll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture

Chain me not to the plow

Set me free to find my calling

And I’ll return to you somehow.

If you find it’s me you’re missing

If you’re hoping I’ll return,

To your thoughts I’ll soon be listening,

And in the road I’ll stop and turn.

Then the wind will set me racing

As my journey nears its end

And the path I’ll be retracing

When I’m homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture

Chain me not to the plow

Set me free to find my calling

And I’ll return to you somehow.

On a quiet misty morning

When the moon has gone to bed,

When the sparrows stop their singing

I’ll be homeward bound again.

Her life was a gift to others. If you were in need of being picked up, she was that person. Today, though we miss her, we know she is finally free of the pain and suffering that often defined her days on this earth. We are so grateful for the time we had with her, and know that we will see her again.

One of Aspen’s friends said he was going to plant an Aspen tree on their property in Tennessee. Our dad warned him, “Aspen’s spread fast and pop up everywhere.” She was well named.