Navigating Life’s Earthquakes: Remembering Ashley Riehl’s Quiet Strength

2024: Ashley and her daughter, Tevy

This piece began as an interview for a book on women and wealth; it has since been revised to honour the life and legacy of Ashley Riehl.

There are people in life who don’t just pass through, they anchor you. Ashley Riehl was that kind of person. Grounded, thoughtful, and real. She was the kind of friend who didn’t fill space with noise, but with quiet presence and insight. 

Ashley and I were busy with life, as we always are, but when she volunteered to conduct an interview for my book about women and wealth last year, we re-entered each other's lives with a deepened connection and planned to visit each other for our respective 50th birthdays this year. 

2011: Ashley and I on her wedding day

When Ashley passed away on August 19, 2025, just six weeks shy of her 50th birthday, after her second battle with cancer, the world didn’t just lose a remarkable woman, it lost a voice of calm wisdom that had a way of making everything seem just a little more manageable.

I had the honour of knowing Ashley for nearly 30 years, we met through my dear friend, her sister, Aeron Wren. Over those decades, our conversations ran the full range, joyful, raw, reflective, funny, and deeply human. And through it all, there was one constant: Ashley’s ability to navigate life’s biggest earthquakes with a kind of grace that rarely asked for attention but always left a lasting impression.

This is not just a memorial, it’s a window into the way Ashley lived, thought, and led.

And in sharing her story, my hope is that her quiet courage continues to ripple outward, encouraging others, especially women, to claim their autonomy, define wealth on their own terms, and trust in their own strength.

Where Her Wealth Story Began

Ashley began by telling me a story about a little red change purse she got from her grandfather. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like junk, something he was probably throwing away, but to Ashley, it was a treasure. She’d fill it with coins, pour them out, count them, and start again. That simple act became her first memory of money and, more importantly, her first connection to what money could mean: autonomy, order, and possibility.

Ashley’s relationship with money wasn’t about accumulation or status. It was about agency. She understood early on that having control over her finances meant having more choices in life. And that understanding would go on to serve her in ways she couldn’t have predicted.

When Life Shakes You

Ashley’s life, like many of ours, didn’t follow a linear path. But when everything came crashing down, when she was navigating a painful separation and, within months, received a cancer diagnosis, it was her foundational belief in self-reliance that held her steady.

She once shared with me:

“We were still under the same roof, trying to figure out the split, when the test results came in. It was Christmas. By February, I had the diagnosis. And I just kept thinking: How will I support myself?”

What stayed with me wasn’t the fear, though of course, there was fear, it was her clarity. She didn’t know the full extent of her employment insurance. She didn’t yet know if her extended health benefits would cover her. She just knew she had to find a way.

Ashley never saw asking for help as weakness, but what she sought first and foremost was the confidence to stand on her own feet. “Of course my parents would’ve helped,” she said, “but that wasn’t the point. I needed to know I could look after myself.”

And she did.

Learning Through Losses and Love

Like many women, Ashley experienced what happens when financial values in a relationship don't align. She shared, with characteristic honesty, the regret of selling her Gastown condo to pay off family debt and using the rest to buy a truck for her then-partner, $40,000 of her savings, gone.

But it wasn’t the money that left the deepest mark. It was the recognition that love, while generous, must also be grounded. 

“I’ve always believed in contributing to my family,” she told me, “but not when it enables spending that doesn’t align with your values.”

That lesson, about honouring both love and boundaries, became part of her legacy. She didn’t dwell on bitterness. She reframed it as learning, and she passed that learning on without judgment.

Rebuilding with Intention

After her treatment and the end of her relationship, Ashley chose to rebuild her life in a way that honoured her own needs, something many of us talk about but few do with such purpose.

She settled in a modest home in southern British Columbia, not because it was impressive, but because it gave her breathing room. Her mortgage wasn’t maxed out; that was by design. 

“I didn’t want to be tight every month,” she said. “I wanted the freedom to travel with my daughter. To live, not just survive.”

She bought a second property in a more remote area, nothing flashy, but highly functional. It was a way to generate income and maintain financial stability. “If a developer shows up one day, great,” she’d joke. “But if not, it’s still paying for itself.”

Ashley knew that wealth isn’t about the car you drive or the size of your house. It’s about choices. It’s about peace. It’s about knowing you can breathe.

Redefining Wealth

In her 40s, Ashley’s definition of wealth evolved in ways that reflected her whole journey. 

“More stuff isn’t more happiness,” she said. “I invest in my health now. In my peace.”

She stopped working extra shifts, even when they paid double. 

She learned to value time as her most precious resource. 

Time for yoga. Time with her daughter. Time in nature. 

That shift, from hustle to intention, was one of the most beautiful transformations I witnessed in her demeanour as we spoke. It was clear she had found a way of living that she valued.

She also questioned old financial rules that didn’t serve her anymore. She paused her RRSP contributions, not out of recklessness, but because she believed she could find better strategies with more knowledge. “I just need more confidence,” she said. And it wasn’t said in defeat, it was said with curiosity.

Ashley didn’t pretend to have all the answers, but she asked the right questions. 

And she always sought to align her actions with her values.

Living Forward

Even in her final months, Ashley was talking about reinvention. About maybe going back to school. About upskilling. About starting something new.

“There’s no deadline for reinvention,” she said. “Technology’s changed everything. If I struggled in school before, I might not now.”

That’s who she was. Always open. Always evolving. When fear crept in, as it does for all of us, she grounded herself in what she called her “reset”: sleep, exercise, and gratitude. “I remind myself, I could live in another city,” she said. “I look at the basics. That’s the real reset.”

Her legacy

If Ashley could say one thing to every woman reading this, it would be this:

“You are the most important person in your life. No one will care for you the way you will care for yourself. Don’t count on the relationship, for financial security or otherwise.”

That wasn’t just advice, that was how she lived with quiet strength, with deep reflection and with unwavering self-respect. 

1999: Ashley and I ready for Halloween

Ashley didn’t need the spotlight to make a difference. Her impact came in the form of honesty, consistency, and the courage to make intentional choices, even when life was hard, even when she was afraid.

I will miss her terribly. But I will carry her voice with me and remember what real resilience looks like. Not loud. Not showy. But deeply rooted and real.

Rest well, Ashley. 

You were, and always will be, one of a kind.

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About Ashley (Canada)

Ashley Riehl (née Wren) was a warm, reflective, and self-aware woman in her 40s, based in British Columbia. She was a driver for HandyDART providing door-to-door, shared-ride public transportation for people with disabilities who are unable to use conventional transit, always wanting to give back and take care of those in need. 

Ashley was a single mother navigating co-parenting and professional life, She brought emotional intelligence and a grounded approach to financial independence. Having faced significant life events including divorce and a cancer diagnosis, she valued autonomy and practical security. Her attitude toward money was balanced; she respected it, understood its role in empowerment, and saw it as a tool for not status, but freedom.