Every day he grows to look more like his father.
Delia sighs as she watches Ash run around in the yard, he and Gary are playing with their Pokemon toys and pretending to be world champions again.
"One day I'm gonna be a Pokemon master just like my dad!" Ash crows, and Delia's heart rends. He's five years old and he still believes his father is on a grand Pokemon journey, that one day he'll come home famous and tell them stories about his battles and victories.
Oh, Ash...
She looks at the newspaper clipping from four years ago and her eyes fill with tears. Jonas Asher Ketchum, 1965-1991. He'd died on Mt. Silver in Johto, both from the cold and from various wild Pokemon attacks. He'd underestimated just how strong the Pokemon were.
"Always so headstrong," she whispers, and every day it's just one more way Ash resembled him. She remembers the letters, the tattered travel diary. He was going to make it big, he said, he wanted them to live in the lap of luxury. You'll see, Delia, he wrote, everything's going to be better than ever when I come back, and I'll be the kinda father our little boy can be proud of!
She wants to tell him, she knows if she keeps letting him believe his father's still out there, it's only going to hurt more when he learns the truth. But how do you tell a five-year-old his daddy's never coming home?
"I'll tell you when you're old enough," she decides, filing the newspaper clipping away in the locked drawer where she keeps all the photos and mementos of her life with Jonas.
Outside, Ash and Gary continue to run around in the sunshine, their eyes wide and their dreams big. Jonas would be so proud of he could see him now.
You'll be a master someday, Ash.
*
Author's Ramble:
This is based on the novelization by Shudo Takeshi, which says that Delia married a wandering trainer who left on a journey after Ash was born and never came back, but it also incorporates some personal canon. I think that Ash's father had plenty of experience as a trainer, but only as a wanderer; he wanted to be "good and ready" before he challenged the Gym Leaders and the Pokemon League and spent years exploring Kanto and Johto, getting in tune with Pokemon, etc. But before he challenged Pewter's gym leader (presumably Flint), he died. My theory is that he was just as headstrong and hot-blooded as his son turned out to be, and got himself killed by jumping into a dangerous situation without thinking. Even though personality traits don't have to be inherited, Ash had to get his hot-blooded ways from someone and Delia's pretty level-headed and sensible.
Makes sense to me, anyway. The canon explanation didn't fill in all the gaps, after all.
The name Jonas Asher is a reference to The Giver. I just thought it fit. *shrugs*