Daughter's addiction leaves behind only photos, memories

Before she was born, her parents, Rich and Michelle Schwartzmier, decided not to learn the sex.

But mom knew. From the moment she learned she was pregnant, Michelle wanted a girl. She already had picked the name: Casey. Michelle loved that name — not for a boy, though, only for a girl. They discussed other names, but Michelle was convinced that they would have a girl, and she would be named Casey.

And so Casey Marie Schwartzmier was born at 2:33 p.m. on May 15, 1996. She weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces, and she was beautiful.

Casey was easy to care for and impossible not to love. She slept well. She was quick to smile. She did not fuss. She was a happy, giggly baby.

She talked at a young age. Her first word was "ball," which made sense because she spent endless hours rolling a ball for her dog, Buddy. The gentle golden retriever would fetch it, gently drop it within Casey's reach and then wait for the next roll.

Before she was 2, Casey understood most everything adults were saying, and she proved it one day in the hospital. Casey had pneumonia. A nurse told Michelle that Casey needed medicine, that it was important to get it down, and so mom might have to hold Casey if she resisted.

"How about you just talk to her?" Michelle said.

"Really?" the nurse said.

"Really."

So the nurse turned to the sick toddler and said: "Casey, I need you to drink this medicine."

Casey considered the request. "I will drink it," she said. "But then I need to watch 'Barney.'"

The nurse agreed, and Casey declared: "It's a deal."

By age 3, Casey was singing. Constantly. Her favorite songs were "You are my Sunshine" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." She dressed up as a kitten for Halloween.

She played with dolls and decided she wanted to be a mommy someday. So she was thrilled when her little brother was born in 2000, before Casey turned 4. She wanted to name him Sparky. Rich and Michelle settled on Eric. Casey adored her little brother. She sang for him, cuddled with him and dressed him up in her clothes.

She was affectionate with all of her family and loved to play with her cousin, Jason. But they once got into an argument over a Tigger doll and Jason took it home. He would return it to Casey many years later.

In elementary school in Ross where the family lived, she was Miss Dazzling Dance in the school play and stole the show. She tried soccer and basketball, but not for long. She stuck with dancing classes and started taekwondo.

At age 8, she had her first Holy Communion and went to her first concert, a Hilary Duff show in Erie.

She was drawn to old cemeteries. Casey would walk among the tombstones and read the inscriptions. On one such visit, she told her mom: "I wonder who they are, how they died and what their stories are." Then she motioned to a small headstone and said: "Wow. This person was only 12."

Her 10-year-old heart broke in 2006 when Buddy died. Casey was at school when he passed, but she felt it. She hurried home that day and called for him. When she could not find him, she searched the woods out back. Michelle told her what happened, and Casey and Eric made a memorial for Buddy. It's still in the yard.

Casey grew. She read all of the "Harry Potter" books, then watched all of the films. She earned her black belt in taekwondo. She got her first cellphone.

In high school, she dressed as a hippy for Halloween, went to prom with her boyfriend and learned how to drive. She hated math but loved to write. She filled notebooks and journals with stories and private thoughts, and she saved them all. Her parents recently found them. They read them, but only a little at a time.

Like other teens, Casey tested boundaries. And like other parents, Rich and Michelle tried to rein her in. When they discovered that she had stolen from the liquor cabinet, they locked it up. When they caught her smoking pot, they grounded her and took away her phone. When a parent told Michelle that Casey had been seen in the park with other teens taking pills, they sat her down.

Casey said they were just mints. But they weren't.

When she was 16, Casey told her best friend, Hunter, that she was using heroin.

Hunter told her to stop. All of her friends did, at least the ones who knew. And eventually everyone knew.

Casey was addicted, and she was struggling. She knew it, and her art showed it. During the height of her addiction, she painted a picture of a crossroads and a sunset. Today, Michelle keeps it in her bedroom.

For Casey's 18th birthday, Michelle put together a scrapbook of her life. There she is in a bunny outfit, running her first lemonade stand, swimming with dolphins during a family vacation. There she is hugging Buddy, then the new dog, Brady. There she is cheek-to-cheek with Eric, trying on her father's firefighter hat, kissing her mom on the cheek.

Casey loved the scrapbook, and she brought it with her to rehab.

Every time.

She hated her addiction. It made her someone she was not. Alone one day, she wrote it a goodbye letter.

"Dear addiction," the letter began. "... I'm done letting you ruin my life. Your just gonna lead me to death or jail. I know we've said goodbye before, but it's for real this time."

Last year on Valentine's Day, Michelle had bought her kids Thing 1 and Thing 2 dolls, from "The Cat in the Hat." Casey got Thing 1, and Eric pretended to be hurt that he was Thing 2. The kids argued, playfully, over who was mom's favorite. Mom did not weigh in, so Eric ended the discussion by stealing both dolls.

This Christmas, at age 20, Casey did not have money to buy her mom a gift.

"It's OK," Michelle said. "Just write me a letter."

"Mom, I'm not 6 anymore," Casey protested.

"But those letters are the best gifts you've ever given me."

So she wrote a letter.

"I will always be your little girl," the letter read. "I just want to make you proud again, so that's what I'm going to do. I know you don't believe me, but I'm going to prove it to you. I really hope this is the last Christmas I ever have to make you sad. I love you Mommy."

Sixteen days after her mother read the letter for the first time, Casey injected heroin for the last time.

It was Jan. 10, and Casey was supposed to go to California the next day for another round of rehab. Michelle, a radiology technologist at Allegheny General Hospital, came home from a 12-hour shift and asked Casey if she wanted to talk. She wanted to spend every last minute with Casey before she got on that airplane.

Casey did want to talk. But she was agitated. She wanted a cigarette but didn't have any. She told her mom they'd talk later.

So Rich and Michelle went to Home Depot to look at floor tiles for a bathroom project.

Shortly after arriving, Michelle's cell phone rang.

It was Casey's boyfriend.

And Michelle just knew.

"How bad is it?" she said.

"Paramedics are here," he said.

"Are they doing CPR?"

"Yes."

They rushed home. Michelle was still wearing her AGH scrubs, so when she asked questions, the medics answered as colleagues.

"Is there a heartbeat?"

"Not when we got here. We got one, then lost it."

Michelle rode in the back of the ambulance. The medics did chest compressions; all Michelle could do was cry.

At AGH, doctors she worked with every day were waiting for the ambulance. One of them asked Michelle about the overdose victim's family. Michelle replied: "It's me. That's my daughter. Help her, guys. Please help her."

They tried.

But her pupils were fixed and dilated, and Michelle knew that was a sign of brain damage. Her lungs were filled with fluid, and her body starved of oxygen.

A minister came and prayed over Casey. He turned to Michelle and declared that a miracle was in the offing, that he had held her hand and felt it coming. Such words gave the rest of the family hope, and Michelle tried to believe, too.

But she knew how to read an MRI, and she knew what Casey's showed.

Friends and family came to visit.

Casey's cousin, Jason, arrived. He spoke softly to her, then tucked the old Tigger doll into bed with her.

When Eric visited, he sat alone with her.

He brought the Thing 1 doll and placed it on her pillow, next to her face.

"OK, Casey," he told her. "You can be Thing 1."

Five days after her overdose, doctors took Casey off the machines to see if she would start breathing on her own.

Michelle was in the room.

Six minutes passed.

Then a doctor told Michelle what she already knew.

It was 2:33 p.m.

"That's the same time she was born," she said.

So the doctor gave it one more minute.

Casey Marie Schwartzmier officially died at 2:34 p.m. on Jan. 15 — 20 years, 8 months and 60 seconds after the was born.

"Casey wanted to live," her obituary read. "She had dreams of a future career, children of her own. (She) fought hard until the end, one day from entering rehab, but couldn't break the chains of this demon ...

"Addiction doesn't discriminate. It will destroy anyone in its path."