Ashlee Emerson Lambrix
Last night, when I landed in San Francisco for the NAREIM Acquisitions
and Asset Management meeting, I opened my phone and saw an email from a former
colleague with some very upsetting news.
“As you probably heard already, Ashlee died last night…she had been
battling cancer for a couple of years.” I was very appreciative that I got the news, and terribly,
terribly upset – and hadn’t known anything about what Ashlee was going through.
Ashlee and I met 10 years ago when she first interviewed for an
assistant research position at Institutional Real Estate, Inc. I liked her right away and could tell she had
great potential. This would be her first
post-college job. The director of
research and I both felt Ashlee could be ‘the one’ to fill the role and,
uncharacteristically in a way, we took her out to lunch with us right after the
interview to get to know her better.
That experience sealed our decision:
she was offered the job and accepted.
Ashlee showed enthusiasm and hunger to learn the industry. When the opportunity arose to appoint a new
head of data services, even though Ashlee had only been in her position for a
few years, she was chosen. I remember during
one of our ‘mentoring’ sessions around that time she said to me, ‘Steve, do you
think I can do this job? There’s still
so much I don’t know about the industry.’
I encouraged her and was always a big fan of hers. She did the job – and more. Ashlee took that position to another level
and, over the years, developed more and more confidence. She was a breath of
fresh air in an industry that sometimes gets a bit too full of itself, and as
she got more and more ‘client facing’ - regardless of her lack of ‘real real
estate’ experience - people loved her. We, her work colleagues at IREI, loved her
too. She had something that you can’t
teach people – a smile that immediately engaged anyone she encountered and she possessed
a maturity beyond her years. People just
liked Ashlee. Ashlee was real.
After I left the company in 2008, she and I kept in touch every
once in a while. We saw each other at a
couple of conferences and had a chance to sit together and catch up. Sitting in
a hotel room this morning writing this, I’m struggling with how long it has been
since the last time we either saw or spoke with each other - I’m feeling very,
very sad.
In November 2014, the piece below was posted on a site called
Miles2Give.org - a non-profit
organization dedicated to finding a cure for Sarcoma and raises funding for
Sarcoma cancer research by completing a team run across or around countries.
Ashlee Emerson Lambrix is a 32 year old, beautiful and
vivacious young lady. Knowing her you would not believe that she has been
fighting cancer for over two years and continues to fight each and every day.
In May 2012, Ashlee was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Rhabdomyosarcoma.
This cancer is so rare that only 120 in one-million children will be diagnosed each
year. Only a handful will be diagnosed over the age of 20. Ashlee fights this
awful and aggressive cancer with the support of her husband, Scott, and
4-year-old son, Hudson.
After her initial doctor giving up on her success, she began to
interview multiple doctors in Southern California. She was looking for a doctor
to fight her fight with her! She ended up at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles.
Though this doctor is willing to try everything to help Ashlee, his location is
not ideal for her and her family. Ashlee had to fly down from Northern
California on a bi-weekly basis to receive treatment. During these weeks she
has to leave her husband and son and miss out on special events such as,
Hudson’s first field trip at school and birthday parties. Knowing this is the
right choice for her and her family does not make it any easier to leave them
and miss out on such precious events.
Ashlee continues to fight her battle, her strength, determination and
persistence is what is helping her through this. Several doctors, and medical
employees have met Ashlee and continue to say, “I have never met a patient who
has cancer, works full time, flies down to LA, and is a full time mommy and
wife.” This is how we know Ashlee is strong and will overcome this terrible
disease. It is with her strength and our confidence in the Lord that we know
she is fighting a battle that she can win. We know God has a plan with this,
and we continue to see what He has in store. We have witnessed first hand the
power of prayer and know that Ashlee is lifted up daily in prayer.
You may have met Ashlee. Perhaps, some of you also didn’t
know what she was dealing with. In times like this we sometimes
gravitate to the philosophical - her battle is over and she is at peace. To
me – it’s a bunch of BS. Ashlee has left this world but I think she
is probably already setting up a database to track lots of information about
the real estate in Heaven to offer insight to the ‘higher authorities’ which
will help them add-value to their ‘property’ portfolio! She’s
probably also already connected via social media ‘in the cloud’ as well!
My heartfelt condolences go out to her husband Scott, her son Hudson and
the rest of her family and colleagues.
32 years old. So much to live for. Life just ain’t
fair!
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