At Christmas, a mother grieves and celebrates her daughter’s gift

A holiday tragedy upended Kristie Askew’s family. It brought life to others.

By Leah Small

Virginia Center for investigative journalism at whro

Christmas has always been a meaningful time for Rev. Kristie Askew, a pastor in the United Methodist Church living in Mathews County. She gave birth to her oldest daughter, Brianna Nicole Sulc, on December 23, 1997, and brought her home on Christmas day.

The season also marks a time of great sorrow. On Christmas Day 2016, a reckless driver crashed into Brianna's car as she was driving to a family dinner. She suffered severe injuries, and died several days later in the hospital. 

 Brianna had chosen to be an organ donor. Her choice gave new life to a man suffering from liver failure and helped two other organ recipients. 

“I've learned over the years that the grief that I experienced from her loss really drives me in my ministry with people,” said Askew, who grew up in Gloucester. “Not that they have to have the same kind of loss, but they've just experienced loss in a lot of different ways, whether it's the loss of a child or a parent, loss of a job, and a loss of a relationship.“ 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Brianna was light in this world. Full of smiles, sunshine. She lit up the room everywhere she went. Some of the things she loved to do was swimming.

She learned to play the guitar. She loved to sing. She loved musical theater. Didn't ever do anything on stage but she did a little bit backstage. And that was kind of our favorite thing to do together, go and watch performances in the area. 

She was born two days before Christmas, December 23rd. We brought her home on Christmas morning. She is my first baby. As a new mother, I was learning a lot. It was Christmas day, so I wanted to be able to take her to the family to go to grandma's house and see people for Christmas and, of course, show off the new baby. 

I remember the hospital made a huge Christmas stocking that the babies could fit into. When we got home, we put her in this big stocking and laid her under the Christmas tree, and that's my first Christmas ornament that I have of her.  

We put a picture of her in it for baby's first Christmas. Her and this little Christmas stocking. Like she's our gift, you know, under the Christmas tree. 

When she was, I think about eight years old, she kind of came out of the blue close to Christmas time and asked if she could be baptized for Christmas. She said she just wanted to give herself to God for Christmas. 

That was her Christmas present to God that year. And that was, very meaningful for her and for me to see her make that decision. The church is decorated with candles, a Christmas tree and greenery. And she's in this white baptismal gown. The baptismal is up behind the pulpit area where the choir loft was.  

I was sitting out in the audience. She was with the pastor. It was just kind of surreal to see that she was given to me on Christmas, in my mind, but giving herself to God on Christmas.   

The last time I saw her was on her birthday, two days before Christmas. She sat on my lap and gave me a big hug and I wished her happy birthday. 

We (planned to) have Christmas with our extended family around 2:00 p.m.  

 She was coming home from her dad's, and we were driving to my aunt and uncle's in King and Queen County, and there is a sharp curve on the road that we would take to my aunt and uncle's house.  

 We were approaching that and found a car accident. It was a really horrible accident. The car looked so mangled, like a ball of metal. You couldn't tell the make or model. 

 And then I saw the license plate, and she had a special license plate with her name on it. I can't remember if it was my son or my husband driving but I told them to stop. I got out and went over there to the car. She was not on site. It was her car. 

 Her belongings were out on the road. The thing that I noticed was her bear. She had a stuffed bear in the big blue house from when she was one years old and had carried that with her all her life.  

 A deputy came over to me and asked me if I knew the driver of the car, and I told him that I was her mother. He just said I needed to get to the hospital immediately. 

 She was flown to Riverside in Newport News and had a few surgeries. We spent Christmas night in the hospital all together as a family.  

Her best friends came. My pastor came. Even her boss and coworkers came and spent Christmas with us there in the hospital. And that meant a lot, because everybody has family, you know. Everybody just kind of dropped everything to be there with us.  

 We knew we had a long night ahead of us because we didn't really know what to expect. It was late into the night when she had finished the surgeries and was put in a room. But there wasn't a lot of hope. It was pretty grim. 

 But those first couple of days after she came out of surgery, I know that she could hear us talking to her.  

 I was able to get in the room with her and speak to her, and I would sing to her, she just calmed and she was just at peace.  

Ultimately, she died. She was brain dead because of the lack of blood flow to the brain. 

 We later found out it was on her driver's license that she was an organ donor. There were a couple extra days we waited for the organ donation team to line everything up for a recipient.  

 They had the recipients notified. I’m proud of her for making that choice. As an organ donor, I feel she wanted others' lives to continue, to receive some sort of blessing, to extend their lives.  

 One gentleman received her liver and there was a young woman who received her kidney. And then, from what I understand, her corneas were donated, but I don't know anything about those persons. We were able to meet the liver recipient. Jeffrey was his name, and he was local. 

 He heard about the story on the news and reached out to us after he had his surgery. He just kind of put two and two together that her story was on the news, and then he got this phone call.  

We ended up meeting him at a Virginia Tech football game. He invited us to meet him and his daughter and some of his friends there.  

 We went up to Virginia Tech and met him and enjoyed an afternoon with him. That was an experience that's kind of hard to describe. 

 I feel like I could sense her there, her spirit, even though there's an organ of hers within him. It was almost like her face was shining through his, just with this light. And the joy that was given to him through her. He would even meet with us at her graveside to remember her birthdays. 

 He reached out to me and her dad on Mother's Day and Father's Day and was just very thankful for the gift of life that it gave to him. He was in his 50s. And one of the biggest things that he wanted to be able to do was see his daughter graduate from college and get married, and he was able to do that. 

 He did pass away last year from another form of an aggressive cancer, unfortunately. But Brianna gave him that gift to see his daughter. It gave him more time. 

 I'm always mindful to take some time to celebrate Brianna for her birthday. But also remember her life and everything that happened that day. 

 I did have to question some things. Why did God let this happen? And I think it's just grown my faith. I don't believe that God made it happen. And I don't think God took his angel back, as some people say. I think the bad things that happen in our world are more just from human error or human mistakes. 

 I've learned over the years that the grief that I experienced from her loss really drives me in my ministry with people. I guess just that strength to sit with people in those hard moments, those tragic moments.  

 And just to be present. You don't have to have the right words to say, but just to be there with them. And they know that they're not alone. 

Each organ donor can save eight lives and every eight minutes someone is added to the organ transplant waiting list, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. Roughly 60 percent of Americans are registered organ donors.

Reach Leah Small at leahmariesmall@gmail.com.