It was a couple of months ago when I first heard the name Ashley Kirilow. A story in the newspaper detailed the con she perpetrated. Apparently, she faked having breast cancer and bilked loving people out of $20,000. My mom passed away from breast cancer, and so I found myself disgusted at this 23 year old con. I hoped she got everything the law could throw at her.
Until today.
Today I read an update on her story in the Ottawa Sun. You can read the entire article here. It’s an angry story. The reporter, Michele Mandel, clearly wants to portray Ashley are a horrible person. I don’t blame her, most people view her that way.
Ashely comes from a broken home. Her parents divorced and she was estranged from them. I don’t know why there was a disconnect between her and her parents, but as someone who worked with teens for many years, my best guess is that the divorce had something to do with it.
After Ashely had a benign lump removed from her breast, she decided to tell her parents that she had terminal cancer to “make them feel bad.” She shaved her head, her eyebrows, and even tweaked out her eyelashes to help support her claims. From there, the con snowballed, with friends and co-workers coming to her support. She loved the attention, and wouldn’t come clean on the scam.
It was this paragraph in today’s article that broke my heart:
Not surprisingly, Kirilow had no one in court for her, not her family and not her friends, as she stood before Justice Fred Forsythe and softly responded “guilty” when asked for her plea.
Later on, the reporter quotes one of the people who gave Ashley $100, “I have my heart in my hand … F–ING BITCH. I hope you rot in hell.”
There’s even a Facebook page pouring on the hate.
Ashely, I don’t know if you’ll ever read this article, but I want you to know that I would have been there in court with you. I would have sat beside you. And while it may have appeared to everyone, including the reporter, that you had no one in court with you, they’re wrong. God was there with you.
You see, God is the God of second chances. He doesn’t condone what you’ve done, but he forgives. He loves. And he can give you what you seem to crave: acceptance, significance, purpose. You made a mistake. One that will cost you financially. People you don’t even know hate you. But God doesn’t.
And the amazing thing is that God knows you better than any of these people. He knows you more deeply than the reporters, the Facebook pages, or any of your friends or co-workers. He knows you more intimately than even your parents. He sees deep within you, and what he sees, he loves. You are his beautiful child.
I know the pain and emotion that come with losing a loved one to breast cancer. I am the first to say that what you did was wrong. But as someone who has walked this path of pain, let me tell you that I forgive you. You are not evil. You are not a terrible person. You are a broken, hurting, young woman who made a mistake.
You are not alone.
To all the others who read this blog, Jesus had a great line when some people came to him wanting to condemn a young woman who had done something wrong. He looked at them, and simply said these words:
Let the one who has never sinned cast the first stone. (John 8:1–11)
No, Ashley’s certainly not alone.
