The Story - From Someone Who Loved Cassie

by Mary Haydal, her Mom

Part IV

I went back to work a few days after family left. I could not be alone with my grief just yet. I walked into the office and looked over at my desk. Someone delivered a candle, there were flowers saying, "Welcome back". Every day someone brought a gift. Someone called. Someone stopped in to share his or her love, stories or concern. Everyone offered to do something about drugs.

My head could not process information. My thoughts could not veer far from Cassie's death. I felt damaged and useless. I went home at 3 p.m. with Nicki. Nicki was pretty much the same way. Greg showed up early too. We spent weeks going easy on ourselves.

Christmas was soon upon us. We decorated early that year. The house was filled with angels, candles and warm sayings. It felt good to come home and plug in the tree and garland. The twinkling, soft lights reflected our fragile mood.

One night, while I was at services, Jeanette, the office manager from our dentist's office came by. Instead of exchanging gifts with each other at the office, they had decided to donate their gift exchange money to our family. The Christmas spirit was a little more alive this year. We were so touched. I will never forget that act of unselfishness, or the love they extended to us. Generous gestures such as this one, I believe, helped me to open my family's heart to the world again.

I thought Christmas would be especially hard this year, but somehow it insulated us. The snow. The serenity. The church filled with angels and Christ's peace. We wanted to do something special because we knew it would be different this year.
None of us could bear the thought of standing with the other families in church on Christmas Eve. I stopped by the priest's house and told him the difficulty we were having. I asked if he would give me enough communion for our family, so we could have our services out at the cemetery. He agreed. Thankful, I took the special container holding the Eucharist in one hand and a prayer book in the other, eager to surprise the family with something special.

The family was hesitant about Christmas. No one wanted gifts. No one wanted to face the holiday without Cassie. When I told them of the idea of a special service out at the cemetery, they all stared blankly at me, but they agreed to try it... We drove to the cemetery in silence. I was indifferent to their discomfort. I was excited that I had special gifts made for each family member, from Cassie, with a locket of her hair in each one.

We lit luminaries around her grave. We read from the prayer book and took the communion. After our special service, I handed everyone his or her gift from Cassie. They all looked at me in such surprise. Each held there gift reverently, no needing to know its contents, only that there was something special from Cassie inside.

Nicki's was a small antique bottle with a chain that could have been a Christmas tree ornament. It had Cassie's hair wound inside of it. Greg's was a key chain with a small glass locket. Cassie's hair was carefully tucked in there and glued by a jeweler. Mom's was a jewelry box with Cassie's hair carefully placed in a tiny jewelry pouch. They stood in silent amazement. Everyone cried. For the first time in weeks, I felt happy.

After they opened their gifts, I was so filled with peace and contentment that I fell back in the snow and made a snow angel for Cassie and signed my name. Greg raised his eyebrows and looked at me then he let go and fell back to make his own angel and signed his name. Nicki and Grandma followed suite. Happiness and peace fell on the whole family. The next two days were beautiful because we had found a way to connect with our daughter.

Days later, when I went back out to Cassie's grave, there were several more snow angels, notes and names written in the snow. People had placed candles, statues and more notes everywhere.

Sister Patrick Leonard Murphy came for Christmas dinner with another couple. You could tell everyone was hesitant when they walked in the door. What would it be like having Christmas dinner with the "grievers"? We probably would have felt the same way if we had been in their situation. We ended up sharing funny stories and laughing. It was a very beautiful Christmas dinner.

Sometime in early December, federal agents came to our home. They were investigating Cassie's death. We offered them coffee and we all sat down at the dining room table.
"Your daughter shouldn't be dead." They told us. They shared everything they could about Cassie's drug use. They were in the process of interviewing everyone who knew her. They answered a lot of questions for me. They also brought a level of truth about her drug use. We developed a kinship with these men that continues today. They were parents too. They shared with us events from their own lives. They were professional. They did their job. They were compassionate and treated us with such solace.

When they left, pain seared through me. I turned to my husband. The tears that had evaded me before came easily now. The reality of her pain, loneliness and addiction was unbearable. How had she endured the unbearable hell of addiction under our own roof, without us knowing? We wept together and crumpled to the floor from the weight of the truth and the feeling of hopelessness that had come from losing a child to drugs.

In January we started to draft a head stone. We wanted something special, of course. But because of the circumstances, we decided it must carry a message that would speak to people 100 years from now.

We chose a stone wider that the normal 36" stone for a single graves. The outside is rounded and has sculptured flowers on it. It reads: Cassie Haydal, August 14, 1982 - November 14, 2000, Daughter of Greg and Mary, Sister of Nicole and on the bottom it reads, "Forever changed by your message, forever blessed by your love."
On the back is our favorite picture of her coming up a spiral stairwell in France. Her face is shining and beautiful in the picture. It really captured her warmth and sincerity. Underneath her picture is a poem she wrote, called The Flame.

 
The Flame
Way down past the sadness,
Deep inside the heart,
There burns an ever-going flame,
From which I'll never part.
It brightens all the darkness
And dries up all the tears.
It lightens up a path in which
to walk from all your fears.
But if your flame should ever
get blown out by winds of sin,
Just stay strong, say a prayer.
And light it up again.
Some lives may be broken
And you might have to mend them,
But no matter how intense the pain,
It never helps to end them.
You may not have much faith left
From where it all once came,
But as long as there's a spark of hope
You'll always have a flame.

By Cassie Haydal, November, 1996

It took months to prepare the stone. In the meantime, the funeral home put a tiny copper plaque with her name and date on it. It caught all of us off guard. It was every bit as moving as the stone would have been. It seemed to seal the burial. More angel statues appeared crosses, candles, stuffed animals, single roses, and scores of letters and cards. All were frozen to the ground.

Spring was almost here and that meant the Prom would be here soon. I called Kim, one of Cas' friends, who was as tall as she was, to see if she wanted to sew a formal out of the material I had purchased for Cassie. The top was strapless leather with a v cut in the middle. The bottom was a straight black silk skirt. We spent evenings and weekends cutting, sewing and hiding our mistakes. We shared memories of Cassie. I learned a lot. Other girls started to show up with their material and patterns. We sewed three dresses in a couple of weeks. There was a lot of eating and giggling coming from our dining room. There were only a few tense moments. Finally, prom morning, the last dress was done. Kim had short, auburn hair, and the black dress was stunning on her. Jen, with her trim waist and red-dyed bob was sensational in her green satin, and Marissa, had the perfect figure for her snake-skin-looking blue formal. It was a great idea making the dresses. I was full of new, good memories.

The girls all came to the house the evening of prom and had their picture taken together. We smiled and joked. But, when the last girl walked out the door, I turned to Nicki in the next room, who opened her arms, and I ran over and we held each other and cried. No one needed to say, "That should have been Cassie walking out of that door."

Nicki and I decided that Cassie should have flowers too. We took beautiful flowers out to her. We lit hurricane lamps and placed them on each side of the grave. We left them burning. We knew others would be out. Sure enough, the next day, the kids started calling. They had all gone out after the dance and found the lit lamps.

Nicki spent the night at a friend's house. My husband and I knew that if this night brought such emotional weight, that graduation would be unbearable. He called that night and made reservations for graduation weekend, which was also Memorial Day weekend. We would go to Lake La Raunge, in Canada. We were escaping to the North.

We left days before graduation. On our way out of town, we stopped at the cemetery to leave a note for the seniors.

Graduation morning found many seniors with mixed emotions. While we were gone, thoughtful friends delivered yellow and blue balloons (school colors) to Cassie's grave. One of Cassie's friends lay daisies (the class flower) all over and surrounded the parameter with blue and gold candleholders, attaching more daisies to each of them. She took a picture so she could share it with us when we returned home. It was very beautiful.

They all met out there at noon in caps and gowns to acknowledge their accomplishments and say out loud what wouldn't be said at the school graduation ceremony. "Cassie's not here". The kids wanted to have an empty chair at graduation service, but the school didn't want to memorialize her death. They allowed flowers from the class to be placed on the stage in her remembrance. Once of her friends came to the house, to get the tri-fold folder with all her senior pictures on it. At the last minute, the principal let her put it on the stage. Some of the kids receiving scholarships didn't know it was up there. If you were sitting towards the middle and back, you couldn't see it.

One of Cassie's friends shared with me later, that when she went up to get her scholarship, she was taken aback when she saw the photos and she lost her composure. I tried to imagine her loss as she went to the front of the room to receive the largest scholarship that can be offered to a student from our community. It should have been the happiest moment of her life. She walked up excitedly to accept her reward for hard work and determination. As she reached the front, the pictures slapped her. Cassie would have never wanted that, although it made us feel good that her friend wanted her there so much that she went through the effort.

In the meantime, hundreds of miles away, we had left the cabin to go fishing. It was freezing, so we put on many layers. I wore a jacket with a fur-trimmed hood. In the afternoon, during the time of the ceremony, I hung my head over the edge of the boat I hid my face from the family with my hood. Reality pounded itself against me relentlessly. My pain was like a searing heat, which was turning my insides to liquid. I stared into the water and willed my grief into the lake. Though we had tried to remove ourselves from the weekend's cruel reminder, the truth followed us...

As a parent, I thought I had done everything right. We went to church. We prayed at night. I would lay with the girls in the dark and they would share their intimate thoughts. We would pray for their future husbands and careers. Cassie would grab me and ask me to pray with her about a problem. I would pray with her friends when asked.

She was involved in sports, bible camp, church classes, friends, family and community. We talked to our children daily about everything we knew about drugs.
At night, I would wait for Cassie by the kitchen door. I would hug her and smell her after she had been out. I was sure I would detect signs of alcohol or marijuana, if there were any. I knew my girls would never touch drugs. I thought because we were Christians, that there was a bubble around my children that other families didn't have.

I think back to freshmen year. We found out that Cassie was smoking marijuana. We took her for an addiction evaluation. They said she was not addicted to anything and she had three choices: Go to AA, work with a counselor or go to group therapy. They strongly urged her not going to group, because bad behaviors are openly exchanged there. Some of the kids were into tougher stuff than she was. So Cas and her friend both chose AA. The adults there were very welcoming and Cassie told me she was changed forever by their stories.

She always referred to her freshman year as her "wild time". I bought that. In Junior and Senior year, occasionally when something didn't seem right with Cassie, we would have long talks and she would be OK for a while. I attributed some of it to being a teen, working and going to school and being in love...But weeks before she died I questioned her about her dark circles, her weight loss and her absence from home. I begged her to tell me what was wrong. I asked her several times, and then I took her to the doctor twice. The first time was three weeks before she had the massive heart attack. The second time was just three days before November 4th.

I went to high school in the 70's. Some of the girls had anorexia. One girl died. Could that be what was wrong with Cassie? She had a good appetite and she was thin, but not skinny… I couldn't put my finger on it. I hoped that with time, the answer would be revealed. The answer was revealed to me in pieces, like a puzzle. It spoke to me through my daughter's eyes and actions every day for months.

What I should have done, instead of trying to interpret the symptoms myself, was to take her for help and let the professional interpret the symptoms.

My parents always treated me with respect. They always made me feel that I was trusted. I valued that as a teen and I did not want to do anything that might compromise such a gift. I thought trust was everything between a parent and a child. My parents never looked through my mail, room or purse.

Some of my friends rebelled because their parents were too strict or too snoopy, so I tried to create that same rapport that I had with my parents between my daughters and me. As a parent, I used my experiences as a measure of how to discipline and raise my daughters. I thought that if I had an open relationship with my girls, they would lead with good behavior.

I believe that even though families are close and parents have close relationships with their children, that children are bound to experiment as a part of declaring their independence. When children experiment or get in trouble; it is our opportunity and our privilege to coach them and prepare them for a time when they are on their own and such circumstances arise.

If our children have friends who smoke, drink, have sex, party and use drugs, they will too. Experts will tell you that taking drugs is a 30 second decision. If children have drugs in their environment, they have a 51 % chance of using them.

If our children try alcohol, drugs and sex, do we have a plan in place that will send the message, "We love you and therefore we are going to show you the consequences of your actions?"

When our children get into trouble or make negative choices, as parents, we seem to have a problem understanding that it is not about us! It is about our children. And our actions will relay to them their boundaries and family values. We will be giving them boundaries in which to operate that will keep them safe. The experience of receiving a consequence for an action can then be used as a tool for measure when they are no longer with us.

Cassie's story is a story of drug addiction, but more importantly, it is a story about the power of healing and love within each of us. The ability each of us has within ourselves to transform. We can turn a nightmare into a miracle. We can take devastation and turn it into a life worth living. We are all damaged...

When Cassie died, all I could think of was, this only happens to other people. For the first time in my life, something devastating happened to me and to my family, but if bad things can happen in my life, I believe the good things are mine to claim as well. Blessings are ours for the taking. We are vulnerable when we open ourselves to love. But a life without love is a life without hope.

Although a part of me died with Cassie, a new part of me was born that same day. I can't live for her, but I can carry her message to others.

I choose to remain vulnerable to love. I open my arms wide to inevitable pain. For in the greatest depths of pain exists the greatest beauty. It is where we find each other, our real selves, our Christ selves. It is where I will find Cassie.

Copyright 2001

Link to More of The Story "From Someone Who Loved Cassie" |  Part I |  Part II  |  Part III  |