Losing a child -- at any age -- is devastating. Trying to wade through the vast array of suffocating emotions is almost impossible. Almost. My son, Alexander, was born and died almost 31 years ago. While sometimes it feels like yesterday, it also feels like forever ago. My sister was there when Alexander passed through my arms, and I was there when her oldest child, a daughter, almost 41 years old, died. Dayna was my first niece, and I was smitten from the moment she was born! She and I spent a lot of time together over the years, and had a very special -- almost sacred -- relationship.
This is what I wrote for her Celebration of Life:
We are here today with heavy hearts to say goodbye to Dayna. Two years ago, I was driving down a city street when I noticed a skinny girl with green hair on the sidewalk. As I pulled past her and looked in my rearview mirror, I knew exactly who it was. I could tell by the walk. I shouted her name out the window, and when she gave me that little hip-high hand wave, I knew it was Dayna. I quickly turned the car around and pulled up on a side street near her. I told her to get in the car, and she did. It had been several years since we had seen each other, and I wasn’t sure if she recognized me, so I asked her, “Who am I?” She said, “You’re my Aunt Carrie!” After a couple of brief stops, I took her home with me, and she stayed for several days. I told her to make herself at home, to come and go as she pleased, but no drugs or people in my house. And she respected that. She had been in and around Lansing for a while, living on the streets and self-medicating. She wanted to go back into rehab and kick the beast for good. She wanted to get a job, a new apartment, and her kids back.
The last time I saw Dayna was two weeks before she died. I had been texting with her, and she was excited to learn that I had bought a house and was living in the city again. I told her that if the car was in the driveway, it meant that I was home. Imagine my surprise when, not long after that text, there was a knock on my door. Mind you, I have not one, but TWO doorbells. She knocked on my door instead. I quickly pulled up my front porch camera, and I ran through my house shouting, “Is that my Dayna? Is that my Dayna?!” I flung open the door and pulled her into a hug, and we fell onto the couch laughing and talking over one another. I picked up my phone, and we called her mom and Grandma. I wanted them to be able to hear her voice and know that, for at least that moment in time, she was safe. When it was time for her to leave, I hugged her. HARD. I told her I didn’t want to let her go. And I didn’t. If I only knew then what I know now, would the outcome have been different?
So, today, we gather to honor Dayna’s life. A life that began with so much light, so much promise, and so much love, before a dark illness slowly took hold.
To many in the outside world, Dayna may have been just another face in the crowd, a statistic in a drug crisis that continues to take far too many young lives. She may have been seen as someone distant, someone lost, or someone defined by addiction. But that is not the truth of who she was.
To us, she was a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a mom, a friend—and my beloved niece. My beloved Chica. She was part of us. She belonged to us. And she mattered deeply.
Dayna was not just a “drug-addicted homeless person.” She was a person who suffered from addiction and homelessness. There is a profound difference. One reduces a life to a label. The other reminds us of the human being underneath—the person who laughs, who loves, who hurts, and who dreams.
And Dayna had dreams. She wanted to go to rehab, get a job, get an apartment, and, most importantly, get her kids back.
I want to take a moment to remember the Dayna we knew before the world became so heavy for her. She was a beautiful old soul, intelligent, curious, and immeasurably funny. She was compassionate and caring. She felt things deeply. She had a spark in her—a spark you could see in her smile, in her laughter, and in the way she connected with people.
She loved to sing and dance. She loved doing craft projects, creating things with her hands, writing in her journal, and expressing herself in her own unique way. There were midnight runs to Wally World, just because we could. There was joy in her, a lightness, a sense of possibility. Those are the pieces of her that live on in our memories.
Dayna was more than her addiction. She was laughter. She was kindness. She was warmth and vulnerability and strength, all wrapped into one complicated, beautiful person.
The last few years of her life were unimaginably difficult. Not just for Dayna, but for everyone who loved her—especially her children. There is a special kind of heartbreak that comes with loving someone who is struggling with addiction. You watch them fight a battle that is often impossible to win alone. You hope. You pray. You hold on. And sometimes, despite all that love, you watch them lose their way.
We saw her lose so much—her children, her stability, her home, her sense of self, and the life she once knew and was so proud of.
Addiction is a thief. It steals freedom. It steals choice. It steals dignity. And perhaps most painfully, it steals a person's ability to see their own worth. It leaves behind shame, isolation, and a sense of unworthiness—even when love is still there, surrounding them.
But even in the darkest moments, Dayna was still in there. Still, someone’s child, granddaughter, sister, mother, and still my beloved Chica. She is someone we loved.
I know that today, in this room, there is a complicated mix of emotions. There is deep grief, of course. There is sorrow for what was lost, and for what could have been. But there may also be a quiet sense of relief, something that is hard to admit out loud.
Relief that the constant worry is over. Relief that she is no longer out in the cold. That she is no longer afraid. That she is no longer in pain.
And that does not mean we love her any less. It means we love her enough to feel the weight of her suffering. It means we love her enough to let her go.
Dayna tried. And, in her own way, she fought. Her path was not easy, and it was not the path we wished for her. But her struggle does not erase her humanity. It does not erase the love she gave, or the love she inspired in others.
She was not the sum of her worst moments. She was not her addiction. She was a person who was hurting—a soul carrying wounds too deep to be seen, fighting battles most of us will never fully understand.
I take comfort in believing that her struggle is over now. That whatever chains held her here have been broken, and that she has found the peace that escaped her in this life.
I hope she knows—truly knows—how much she was loved. Not for who we wished she could be, but for who she was. Fully, imperfectly, beautifully human.
And as we say goodbye, we hold on to the memories. The laughter. The small moments. The glimpses of the girl she once was and the woman she tried to be.
To her children, may they one day understand that their mother loved them, even when she couldn’t show it in the ways we all hoped. That love never disappeared.
To all of us, may we carry forward compassion—not just for Dayna, but for others who are struggling, who are hurting, who feel unseen.
And to my darling Chica— May you finally be at rest. May you be warm. May you be safe. May you be free.
You are loved. You mattered. And you will never be forgotten.
