In the 358 days (11 months and 21 days) since my daughter Casey died my reflections on her life have not changed. I still see her pink and white Nike tennis shoes Abby wore for a short time after Casey passed away in the girl’s bathroom. I loved to watch Abby run and jump in those shoes. They never moved that way with Casey in them. I’ve seen Ally wearing some of Casey’s old shirts and they never moved like that with Casey in them either.
The photos in our house, some taken weeks or months before she died, are of a 17-year-old Casey. It is strange to think that when I am 80, I will still have a 17-year-old Casey framed on my wall. I will never know a 19, 21, 30 or 35-year-old Casey.
I will never know college graduate Casey. I will never know how happy she would have been on her graduation day from college. I can only remember her high school graduation and how proud she was laying there in the hospital knowing she was achieving high school graduation knowing she was dying. I will never see the smile on her face on her wedding day. I will never see her holding one of the 8 grand-babies she wanted to adopt so she could have children. I will never hold her children or throw a baby shower for her.
Her face is permanently frozen at 17 years and 10 months. This is the last family picture we will ever have with Casey in it. The same day she was so proud to show off her new eyebrow piercing in for her senior pictures. You know the one of her in her favorite red shirt. The eyebrow piercing she got the night before our pictures. This same picture is the one sitting in her curio cabinet with her ashes.
I’m sure that is something all grieving parents have to come to grips with, and I still am learning to try to come to terms with Casey’s death. She left us far too soon. I wasn’t ready for her to go , and I honestly know I never would have been ready to have her go.
I dream about Casey on the nights I sleep well enough to dream. In all of my dreams about her, she is active, able and full of life — as she was here on earth except there she can do everything she couldn’t do here on earth. I am not one to analyze dreams, but I have awakened several mornings with a small smile on my face, because the dreams remind me that she is in that she is free from the confines that held her back here on earth.
Tears creep back in, in some scattered private moments when I least expect it. Seeing dates on a calendar (March 9th , March 10th , March 11th , March 15th , March 16th , March 17th , March 18th and March 21st ) . Sometimes the tears threaten to spill over even driving by the hospice (Women and Children’s center). Small unexpected artifacts bring memories of the day, the morning she died, rushing back in. I haven’t bought a can of spaghettio’s since she passed away. Milk jugs are not my friend anymore then the calendar is. I cannot buy nail polish anymore either which I'm sure is a crime against the twins but I can not stand there and pick it out knowing I will see the colors her beautiful fingers and toes were painted and how much she wanted them the morning she died.
Until the day I die, I will always be a mother of four. In my frequent “conversations” with new colleagues at school, I will tell them about Casey because there is no other way to life. I am unable to say with a clear conscience that I have three children because if I tried to say that I would be lying and betraying Casey. This to me is the ultimate sin to her memory. She lived a life worth telling people about.
I always say, “I have 4 children. I have twin daughters who are 14, a son who is 3 and my oldest daughter should and would be 15 years older then he is. My oldest daughter Casey died, at age 17 almost a year go.” That feels right to me. And it has also opened up countless opportunities to share my daughter’s story if they ask.
My daughter Casey lived because she knew her time was limited. She studied hard. She was a good daughter. She was a good student. She was a good friend. She is dead. She is never coming back to us here on earth.
This isn’t how life is supposed to go. She was supposed to mourn me, not the other way around. It isn’t fair and it will never be fair. I have an empty spot in my heart that will never heal and will always long for my daughter and who she was, and who she should have become. My heart aches for Casey daily. Some days aren’t as bad as others but they aren’t how they should be in a perfect world. I have come to realize my heart is forever broken.
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