This Eulogy was written for my beautiful niece Katie who fought a heroic battle with addiction, but after 14 years of trying to fight off the demons that come with this disease has proven to all of us the powerful hold it had on her.

To the people who don’t understand addiction, to them she is just another statistic, and she choose to make one bad decision after another. What they don’t understand is that.....

Katie did not choose to live her life with drugs. She did not choose to die at the age of 32. She did not choose to leave her daughter Sophia at the age of 8 for her to grow up without a mother. She did not choose to leave her mother and father devastated. She did not choose to leave her brother, sisters or her cousins to carry on without her. She did not choose to leave friends without saying good bye. She did not choose to leave her longtime girlfriend Kyleah alone in this world. She did not choose any of that…

Katie did not choose…

DRUGS, NARCOTICS, POISON - whatever name you put on it, took the life of our beloved Katie (Katie Kat according to MJ) Elizabeth’s and Ralph’s youngest daughter to which Liz referred to Katie as her clone. 

This DRUG, POISON managed to:

enter Katie’s life…addict her…take control of her mind.... make her sick…then it managed to finally kill her….

Katie left this world much too young and much too soon and without her realizing how many people in this world she had touched in her lifetime.The out pour of warm thoughts and prayers for our family are plentiful but unfortunately, Katie didn’t realize how many people loved and cared about her so very much.

Parents who have lost children to this epidemic feel helpless and so many of them blame themselves. They do not know how to stop the pain or the suffering that their child is going thru. They feel guilty. They feel angry. They feel this unbelievable sadness as like no other. They feel the loss of their child so deeply to the point that they can not stand on their own two feet. They feel their heart breaking into a million trillion pieces. They feel their world stopping as the world of others still goes on.... They don’t understand and ask “WHY” , Why my child, Why Katie...……..

Liz and Ralph tried to help Katie as much as they possibly could, but they still question themselves as to what else could they have done. They tried tough love. They helped Katie get her into hospitals. They helped Katie get into detox centers. They helped Katie with several different therapists. They tried, and they tried…. To which they all were unsuccessful. The poison’s hold on Katie was too strong and powerful for Katie to escape.

When Katie was younger and before the drugs/poison took over her mind and body, she was a bit shy, she was smart as a whip. She was funny, she was soft spoken, and she was gentle. She was sweet, and she was innocent. She was a sister to Melissa, Kristene, Michael and Jamie, she was a granddaughter Rosemary and Rita and Barbara, she was a longtime partner to Kyleah, she was a niece to many Aunts and Uncles and she was a friend to so many people. She was beautiful inside and out. She was my god daughter and was very special to me. 

As Katie got older and the poison were starting to take over more and more to which it gave her a false sense of security and confidence. She became more and more outspoken to cover up how timed and unsure of herself she actually was. She became more depended on drugs in order to fit in and be able to deal with her life. She became to feel more and more like an outsider and pushed everyone away from her without even realizing what she was doing. The more unsure she became, the more she turned to drugs.

The drugs/poison helped her feel normal – It helped her feel accepted – It helped her feel alright in the moment – It helped her feel worthy – It helped her feel loved. The drugs/poison helped her with the pain in her body -The guilt in her mind to retreated and for the loneliness to go away.The drugs/poison made her feel that everything will be ok.....The poison made her feel nothing, NOTHING at all.....

 What the poison didn’t tell her is that it will devastate her family and tear it apart. The poison didn’t tell her that it would take her jobs and leave her penniless. The poison didn’t tell her how it would steal her daughter from her arms. The poison didn’t tell her how it would take her home, her friends and her family. The poison didn’t tell her how it would take the sparkle from her eyes and the smile from her face. The poison didn’t tell her how it would take her sense of humor, her beauty and her soul. The poison didn’t tell her how it would take and take and take …. Until that one day when she was alone…..The poison did not tell her that it would not stop taking until it took her life....

 Now…Katie has no more pain…She has no more feeling guilty…She has no more feeling bad about herself…She has no more feeling worthless or ashamed…She has no more being afraid…Katie has no more …

Katie is at peace and she is with Auntie Jane (MJ) and Papa. They will take care of her until we meet again. She is in the arms of God and flying with the angels in heaven and she is safe now. She is among us and does not want us to feel sad or hang our heads low, for she would ask for everyone to watch over her daughter and take care of her mother and to realize.....

                    Katie is finally home.

__________________________________________________________________

Poem:

Miss Me

Miss Me, but let me go 

When I come to the end of the road

and the sun has set for me. 

I want no rites in a gloom filled room,

Why cry for a soul set free.

Miss me a little

but not too long,

And not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love that we once shared,

Miss me, but let me go

For this is a journey that we all must take,

And each must go alone.

Its all part of the Master’s plan

A step on the road to home. 

Anonymous Author