My Beautiful Cassie Girl

Today you would be 36.

Thirty-six.

And yet, you never even saw your 30th birthday.

My beautiful Cassie girl, I don’t really know how to write this today.

I feel like I am living in a fog—in a bad dream where somehow none of this is really true. There is still a part of me that believes you are here. That I am going to see you. That somehow six years haven’t really passed since I last heard your voice or held you.

And that makes no sense.

Because I was there.

I held you through it.

I know what happened.

And yet there is a part of my heart that still cannot fully comprehend a world where you are not in it.

But you were here.

You lived.

You loved.

You sang and danced.

You laughed. You cried. You made memories. You became a mother. You were a daughter and a sister and a friend.

You were here, Cassie.

And today, more than anything, I want to honor that.

I want to honor your birthday.

I want to share with the world the enormous love I have for you and somehow find words for the gaping hollow in my soul where you should still be.

I want to be strong, too.

Because I know I am not the only one missing you today.

Your sisters are grieving.

Your dad is grieving.

Your grandparents, your children, your family and your friends—they each carry their own pieces of missing you.

And sometimes I wonder, how do I do this?

How do I honor you today?

How do I honor you quietly and boldly at the same time?

This morning, I sat in my closet and remembered you through photographs.

Moment after moment.

Memory after memory.

A life captured in little pieces that I can still hold in my hands.

I have so many wonderful memories, and I will do my best for the rest of my life to recount them. To speak your name. To tell your stories. To remember the sound of your laughter and the things that made you you.

Each photograph holds a moment that has now become a memory I will cherish forever.

But photographs aren’t enough.

Memories aren’t enough.

I want you.

And yet today, life will continue around me.

I will have to show up for other people even though I don’t feel like it.

I will put a smile on my face for someone who has absolutely no idea what is happening behind it.

I may have to show extreme grace to someone who doesn’t have a clue what this day means to me.

And I will.

I will do it all, baby girl.

You would want me to.

And today, I will wear pink.

Maybe to everyone else it will simply be what I chose to wear.

But I will know.

I will know that I put it on for you.

A quiet little reminder that I am carrying you with me into every place I have to go today. Into every conversation. Behind every smile. Through every moment when I would rather retreat from the world and just miss my daughter.

Maybe that is part of how I honor you—quietly and boldly.

I wear the pink.

I say your name.

I tell your stories.

I keep showing up.

And I carry you with me.

But underneath all of that is a mother thinking about the daughter who should be turning 36 today.

And I am angry.

I am sad.

And somehow, at the very same time, I am filled with so much love and compassion.

Grief is strange that way. There doesn’t seem to be room for all of those emotions at once, and yet somehow there is.

Addiction took you from me.

Drugs.

Even writing that word makes me angry.

Sometimes it all seems so senseless.

I think about everything that was lost. Everything that could have been. Everything that should have been.

And I struggle to understand how something could take such a hold on someone I loved so deeply.

I thought I could protect you.

I was your mom.

That is what moms are supposed to do.

I wanted to protect you from the world. From people who might hurt you. From bad choices and consequences and dangers I could see coming.

And when addiction entered your life, I wanted to protect you from that, too.

I wanted to love you enough to make it stop.

I wanted to find the right words. Make the right decision. Do the right thing.

I wanted there to be something—anything—I could do that would reach through all of it, grab hold of my daughter and pull you back.

But there are some things a mother’s love, no matter how fierce, cannot control.

That truth still hurts.

Because if love alone could have saved you, baby girl, you would be here.

You would absolutely be here.

Sometimes I still find myself going back through it all in my mind.

The what ifs.

The if onlys.

The things I wish I had known.

The things I wish I had done differently.

The ending I desperately wanted to rewrite.

It all seems so senseless.

You had more life to live.

You had babies to watch grow.

You had sisters to grow older with.

You had a dad and grandparents and family and friends who loved you.

And you had a mom who would have done anything she knew how to do to keep you here.

I wish I could change the ending.

I wish with everything in me that your story had gone differently.

I know you are no longer suffering, and I am grateful for that. I truly am.

But selfishly?

I wanted a different outcome.

I wanted the one where you stayed.

I wanted the one where you got another chance.

I wanted the one where you turned 30.

And 31.

And 32.

And today, 36.

I wanted the one where a mother didn’t have to outlive her child.

And I wonder sometimes what that life would look like.

What would life be like with you here?

What would we look like now?

I imagine us spending special times together. Talking about everything and nothing. Silly things and serious things. Talking about what is happening in the world. Laughing about things no one else would understand.

I imagine watching your babies grow together.

I imagine sharing that mother-daughter bond as two grown women.

I wonder what our relationship would look like now.

I wonder who you would be at 36.

But if I am truthful, I can’t stay in that place very long.

It hurts too much.

Because I wasn’t finished knowing you.

I wasn’t finished being your mom here.

There was supposed to be more.

So much more.

What I would give for more time with you.

One more conversation.

One more laugh.

One more chance to hear your voice.

One more long embrace where neither one of us lets go.

One more chance to look at you and say,

I love you.

But today, I will hold tightly to what I do have.

Thirty-six years ago today, you were born.

You were here.

You lived.

You loved.

You sang and danced.

And for 29 years, I had the privilege of loving you here on this earth.

Addiction may have taken your life, but it will never get to define your life.

You were so much more.

You are so much more.

You are Cassandra Brooke.

You are my daughter.

My beautiful Cassie girl.

And I am still your mom.

I don’t know that I will ever understand why your life ended before mine. There are questions I have learned I may carry with me until the day God answers them Himself.

But I believe with all my heart that the last time I held you was not the last time I will ever hold you.

That is where my hope lives.

Not in pretending this doesn’t hurt.

Not in pretending I understand.

Not in pretending I don’t wish desperately that God had answered my prayers differently.

My hope is in knowing that death does not have the final word.

So until the day I see you again, I will keep loving you from here.

I will keep saying your name.

I will keep telling your stories.

I will keep remembering.

I will keep loving your babies.

And I will keep trying to figure out how to honor you—quietly and boldly—all at the same time.

And today…

I will wear pink.

Happy 36th birthday, baby girl.

I wish you were here.

I wish we had gotten our different ending.

What I wouldn’t give for just one more long embrace.

One more chance to look into your eyes.

One more chance to tell you…

I love you.

Always.

Mom