AVERY COUNTY, N.C. — In the months after her mother, Kim Ashby, disappeared in the floodwaters of Helene , Jessica Meidinger went up to the Avery County land where Ashby was last seen. The healing of the earth in the time since September 2024 was not lost on Meidinger.

"My brother and I went up there for Mother's Day," Meidinger said. "We walked a lot of the river, a lot of the areas that we had searched, and it's just crazy how quickly Mother Nature takes over."

For Meidinger, moving forward is not as simple.

"The reality that a year is coming up and that this thing that still doesn't feel real," she said. "I mean, I still catch myself trying to pick up the phone to call her."

On the morning of Sept. 27, 2024, Meidinger's mother, Ashby, and stepfather, Rod, woke up inside their brand

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