Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A Letter for Cassie

Sisters,

You may have seen this circling the facebook yesterday, our sisters at High Point University (Gamma Eta) in North Carolina are mourning the loss of Cassie Hill, a Senior from Marietta, Georgia yesterday.
Tara of Confidently Crazy posted a letter to Cassie last night on her blog, that I felt really captured what Alpha Gams accross the country are feeling for Cassie, her family, and Gamma Eta. With her permission I'm reposting it below.

Loyally,
   Kirstin

For those of you looking to send Gamma Eta your love and condolences their Facebook page is "Alpha Gamma Delta at HPU."


Reposted with permission from Confidently Crazy

Rest In Peace, Cassie.

Dear Cassie-

I feel the need to write this to you.  I don't know why.  You didn't know me when you were alive.  We didn't grow up in the same town or go to the same schools.  We didn't have mutual friends and we could have gone our entire lives without knowing the other existed.  But, we are Alpha Gams.

Now, I know of you.  Although, I won't go anywhere near saying I KNOW you. 

I found out about your death yesterday from Facebook.  Perhaps the best way to get information these days but also the worst way to grieve - so openly.  It started when some of the girls I advise in Alpha Gam "liked" your chapter's facebook page at High Point University.  I thought that was odd since we're at the University of Kentucky and I couldn't find the connection...besides just being Alpha Gams.

So I explored the facebook page and saw an absolutely heartwarming outpouring of support.  Everyone loved you.  I gather from what people said that what happened to you was sudden, unpreventable, tragic.  You just never woke up.  And people are devastated.  I can't imagine how your family is doing.  I can tell your AGD sisters and your friends are hurting.  It's obvious that HPU is quiet today.

And it's hard to put into words the feelings of loss associated with losing a young person.  I have experience with this and it just feels like "why" and "what if" rule your world.  What if she lived?  What if she changed this or that?  Why weren't there any symptoms? 


What if?

Why?

But I left the sorority house yesterday feeling confident in one thing, if nothing else.  Our Sisterhood.  The women of your chapter are struggling and they will continue to struggle for a long time.  It is so clear to me, as an outsider, that you were beloved.  And so I want to tell you that although you can't physically be there for your Sisters, we will be.  I've already gotten emails from my girls about helping.  I don't want you to worry, Alpha Gam will take care of them.

They all loved you so much.  And I didn't know you but I am grieving for you as a "sister".  I remember hearing one time in an AGD poem that when we're in heaven, we will recognize each other at once as Sisters of Alpha Gamma Delta.  I hope that's true.
  
Loyally,
Tara