Sorted in: personal
A reader of my wifes blog, Brooke, retouched the photo of Cassandra. Thank you, Brooke.
2008 started off like so many other new years, uneventful. The main thing on our mind was Isabella and her stomach flu. Apparently both kids caught it sometime the week before but her symptoms appeared to be worsening. I stayed home to watch her while Rashida ran some errands. That’s when I got the call…on January 1 at 5pm, my sister, while in Taiwan, took her own life.
I want people to know what happened. Not to sensationalize it, but because I want others - if they find themselves thinking the way my sister may have - to consider what they are about to do. Life is hard and throws us unexpected twists, but it is never permanent. Sometimes the journey to recovery may take a long time, but nothing is irreversible. Just as time is guaranteed to keep moving forward, so to do troubles. Talk to someone close; ask for help. Talking with a few close friends or even random people can often shift your perspective. But please, do not make a permanent decision to a temporary situation. Everything passes over…
Anyway, it has been hard these past few days. I’ve been trying to keep it all together, went for a few rides looked at bikes, tried to stay involved in the community, but I guess that really means all I am doing is bottling everything up. Or maybe I’m coping the best way I know how. Cass would have never wanted me to just sit and sulk. She was a go getter, live stronger type person.
Growing up Cass and I suffered a lot from emotional abuse. My mother and I got the full brunt of the physical abuse (getting beat was as common place as breathing) but Cass - and we only found this out in the last few years - had to deal with sexual abuse. Our home was so dysfunctional; my mother did all she could to keep us all together. My mother couldn’t afford two burgeoning teenagers on her small mobile sales salary, so after my parents divorced we lived with family and friends for years just trying to get back on our feet. All this coupled with moving all the time and just normal stupid teenager things added up to Cass’ frustrations with the world and what she felt was God being unfair to us.
I’m really just rambling here and trying to make sense of it all. I really just miss my best friend. Cass was so frikkin’ awesome. When we were really little we used to run around the house with our underwear wedged up our butts with our bare cheeks showing acting like we were indians on a rampage. I mean, in all the westerns, the indians showed their butts, so we were like, COOL! lets do that! Cass and I always looked out for each other in school and such. If Cass was in a fight, I’d suddenly appear with my crew and proudly stand by just to say “if you f*k with my sister, you’re going to have some problems”. Let’s just say confrontations for Cass were kept at a minimum. Cass would do the same for me; one time she knocked out this kid with a piece of firewood, stood over him and exclaimed “you stay away from my brother!” Basically, you didn’t mess with the Hale kids.
The good news is as we got older we put the fists and wood away and decided to use knowledge to shake people up. But for Cass some things were just a little too difficult to shake off.
So here I am 7 days later, without my beloved sister and wondering what I do from here. Cass never really knew how much she motivated me. And now, she never will…
