Sara’s Story

Sara was born on October 22, 1972. Because of one mistake and one greedy drug dealer, she died on February 28, 2020. How many more are we going to lose? We have to work together to stop these needless deaths of our loved ones. (Posted Oct. 22, 2023)

Someone recently asked me a question that took me by surprise. She asked what Sara would have thought about the work that I’m doing to fight the opioid epidemic. I was surprised because I had asked myself the same question just a few days before: What would Sara think about me sharing her story with others? I remember wondering why I hadn’t thought of that sooner.

When Sara was a defiant teenager, she would say that whatever she did was her business and not anyone else’s. When she was an adult (yes, still defiant!) she would say, “I’m a grown woman and can do what I want.” So, back to what Sara would think. I believe that she would appreciate what I have been advocating for. After finishing the drug program in 2016, Sara expressed regret about how she had spent all the years using drugs. She was sorry about the lost relationships in her family, knowing that drugs were the reason. She was diagnosed with various medical conditions which she also knew were caused by so many years of using.

I believe that she would be okay with her story being shared if it will help stop some young people from taking the path that she took because Sara cared about others.

I will mark the third anniversary of Sara’s death on February 28^th. I can’t go back and change anything, and I don’t have to tell anyone how much I wish I could. But I can keep fighting by educating about early behavior problems, interventions, prevention, and resources. Again, I’m asking for help. As a group, we can make a difference. Contact me with any ideas you might have; about events where you live that might want to give some books away; and about anyone who may benefit from hearing Sara’s story.

October 22, 2022–Happy 50th birthday to Sara. I miss her every minute of every day. It’s almost three years since she left and it seems like a life time ago.

It has been a long time since I have written on this page. It’s June 12th so it’s been a few months. I’ve been doing a lot to promote my book–working with United Way of Broward at events; I presented at their annual mental health conference; emailing groups; joining opioid coalitions. And I’ve started a new book for teens and young adults. As busy as my days are, so are they filled with sadness and wishful thinking. It doesn’t get easier as time goes on–it actually gets to be more difficult. I follow several groups on Facebook about substance abuse. Parents post about the pain of losing their child and how they never wanted to be in “this club.” While we all grieve differently, we share in that we lost a child to the evil of drugs. And I never wanted to be a member of that club, either.

It’s 9:15 PM now, February 27, 2022, almost the exact time two years ago that we got the call to come quickly, that Sara had passed out in the bathroom. Her daughter kept repeating that she found her mother and that she was blue. By the time we arrived, the paramedics were there and trying to revive her. We followed the rescue truck to the hospital. At first they thought she had suffered a cardiac arrest and did some kind of procedure only to learn that it wasn’t her heart. If I remember correctly, and I may not, they revived her several times. At 2 AM the doctor told my husband and I that they didn’t know what had happened but that there was no brain activity. We had to make a decision that no parent should ever have to make about their child. The doctor sent us home and called a couple of hours later and said we should come back. I’m sure I don’t need to tell what happened from that point. In fact, I don’t want to think about it. It has been two years and I still don’t believe that she’s gone. But she is.

As the second anniversary of Sara’s death approaches, I spend a lot of my day (and night, too) thinking about that last day. But my mind constantly wanders to the four years prior to that day and how it was such a turmoil for her. She struggled with finding a job, supporting herself, keeping her rent and car payment current. While my emotions are all over the place–grief, sadness, pride, love, and anger–I try to focus on helping others. The book is moving along and getting into communities. I’m going to be attending various events to speak to parents. And I’m contacting various agencies in different states to tell them about the book and I’m trying to get more involved in helping their communities fight drugs. If you know of anyone in your community who may benefit from my book, please have them contact me for information. I am offering a substantial discount on orders for agencies. My email is mirikal1210@gmail.com.

Over one million Americans died from a drug overdose between the years 1999 and 2021. Over two million teenagers in the United States report that they are vaping, with one fourth of them reporting that they vape daily. Fentanyl is the number one cause of overdose deaths between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Between April 2019 and April 2021, the number of fentanyl deaths doubled, from 32,000 to 64,000. The numbers are horrific.

My daughter struggled with an addiction problem for over thirty years and died from an overdose of fentanyl in February 2020, at the age of forty-seven. I developed a website and wrote a book to provide education, resources, interventions, and prevention information to parents. As a mother of someone who struggled for so many years, and as a licensed clinical social worker, my goal is to help parents keep their children from taking the path that destroyed my daughters’ life.But I can’t do it alone. I need your help. Helen Keller, the American author said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”

Please subscribe to my website. Share with your friends and with anyone who may benefit from the information. If you know of agencies in your community that provide substance abuse resources, send the information to me and I’ll contact them. If you have resources in your area, I’ll be more than happy to list them. I know that if we work together, we can make a difference. And I also know that we all want to stop the drug epidemic that is taking the lives of our loved ones.

SARA ABRA BABROVE OCTOBER 22,1972–FEBRUARY 28, 2020

THE SARA ABRA STAR FROM THE INTERNATIONAL STAR REGISTRY

“When he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

 William Shakespeare

my ivy

my philodendron

Unlike my father, I have never had a green thumb. Wherever we lived, and we moved around a lot because of his work, he planted flowers. There were always peonies that would be in full bloom in the beginning of the summer. When I was ten, we lived in Canada and he had a huge vegetable garden–and his flowers, of course. It was there that he had a room divider covered with ivy and philodendrons intertwined together from the bottom to the top. I think that was when he nicknamed me “Philodendron.” And then as the years go on, life changes and we change along with it. Hopefully our changes are for the better; and they are if we want them to be. But they don’t always work out the way we want them to. When Sara went into the rehab program, she went because she knew it was time for her to change. So many of her years had been wasted and her life destroyed because of her decisions. She knew that and it broke my heart. Nobody would give her a second chance for her to show that she had changed. It especially impacted her financially. I would like to think that others have a second chance and we all need to advocate for that. EVERYONE DESERVES A CHANCE TO PROVE THEY HAVE CHANGED! I still don’t have a green thumb but I discovered that if I want to, I can keep a plant alive.

It’s strange how a date can have an impact on our entire mood. One month from today is Sara’s 49th birthday. (I can hear her telling me: “Mom, don’t tell anyone how old I am. Everyone tells me that I look twenty-seven!”) I see Facebook posts where people who have lost someone say “Forever …..” For me, Sara isn’t “Forever forty-seven.” Next month she’ll be forty-nine and next year will be her fiftieth birthday. I’m not saying the others are wrong and I’m right. I’m saying that this works for me. I can’t explain why it’s important to me, but it is. Perhaps I can’t accept the fact that she’s gone and won’t celebrate more birthdays? Or maybe because I have a birthday coming up and I don’t want to think that she won’t have any more? Whatever the explanation, and there really isn’t one, one month from today Sara will be forty-nine years old.

In looking at this blog, It’s impossible not to reflect on the words that I’ve written and the photos that I’ve shared. It’s so difficult to comprehend that Sara has been gone for almost seventeen months. While the time seems to have passed quickly, the emptiness and sadness that settled over me at the time have not lessened. I still catch myself when I think, “I have to call Sara” or I have something I want to show her. But tonight I want to share with all of you that I have finished the book that I started last year. While it was an emotional journey for me, my goal was to write something that will help parents prevent their children from using drugs. I’m waiting for a paperback copy (I’ll have it Thursday) to make sure that the formatting is okay. (It won’t be perfect because I’ve had computer issues since it crashed. And besides that–there is no perfection in this world we live in). But I’ll share more with you Thursday.

As I have gotten older, I think about the legacy I’ll leave. How do I want to be remembered when I’m no longer here? And I think about the legacy that Sara left. I wonder if she ever thought about it, thought about how people would remember her. I can’t talk to her about it but I can tell others about her legacy. Sara had a good heart. She cared about people. She cared about the homeless and the disabled. From the time she was a young child, she showed compassion to others. As an adult, she continued caring. She would buy food for homeless people. Sara would do anything for her friends. She’d go out of her way to help someone who needed a ride, food, or anything at all. And animals? Sara loved dogs, especially her Nicki. But she loved and protected all animals. She had a big heart and a great sense of humor.Sara loved her daughter and was the best mom she could be. All of these things are her legacy and I am proud to tell everyone about them. And for me personally? Sara was my friend. She was loyal and protective of me, even when she was angry with me or I was angry with her. We were able to develop a special relationship during the last four years of her life. She has been gone now for over fourteen months and I miss her more everyday. I would get jokes, silly memes and articles about people she liked or didn’t like–celebrities, politicians. We talked and texted throughout the day. And not one night went by without a call or text saying “good night” or “sleep good.” I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss that–and will until the end of time. Happy Mother’s Day, Sara. I miss you and I love you.

“As long as someone denies reality, he or she can continue behaving the same as before. Acceptance of reality might commit him or her to the very difficult process of change.” Abraham J. Twerski M.D. As a graduate student, I had to do a lot of research papers. I tried to choose topics that would not only be of interest to me, but also about a topic that would teach me something. When I decided to write a book about drugs to help parents and teens, I knew it would be difficult and it has been. But I’m also learning a lot. When I found the quote from Dr. Twerski, a well-known psychiatrist in Pittsburgh who has devoted his life to helping addicts, it helped me understand what Sara was lacking. She was never fully committed to a total recovery. While she stayed away from opioids for a few years, she thought alcohol and marijuana was okay, not realizing that eventually they would lead her back to what had started her downfall many years before. My goal was to have the book finished by the end of 2020 but that didn’t happen. My new deadline is February 28th–the first anniversary of Sara’s death.

A new year is an opportunity for a clean slate and a fresh start. It’s time to put past mistakes aside and the bad times behind us. Some people think that 2020 was a test for all of us. If that’s true, It was a cruel test for millions of people. When I think of last year and all that transpired, I can only focus on one event and that is Sara. Almost a year later I’m still asking her “Why”? Why did you go back to drugs? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you take something that you knew was deadly when you yourself told me about the danger of fentanyl? I’ll never have the answers to my questions.

When I post photos of Sara, I’m constantly amazed at how different she always looked. Looking at them, I think to myself “The Many Faces of Sara.” But not only does her appearance change, but her different moods are reflected. She looks flirtatious, angry, or frustrated. And she smiled a lot. And the hair color? Always a different color. That was something she started to do when she was young–and she continued throughout her life. I used to tell her it would fall out. Well, once it did!! Yes, she actually lost most of her hair from coloring it too frequently. But it didn’t stop her–that was Sara’s attitude. She had to do it her way.

2020 has been a difficult year and we will all be happy to say good bye to it, It has been a time of devastation, sorrow, loss, and chaos. We have learned to wear masks, stay six feet away from people, isolate ourselves. It has been a time to reflect on ourselves and make changes in our lives that we never took the time to work on before. We have helped our neighbors and family members who were hit hard from the pandemic. Many of us lost family members to the deadly virus; many of us lost family members to other tragedies. But it’s almost over and we have the opportunity to start fresh. Let’s take the positive things we learned from the tragedies and make 2021 better.

Sara would have been forty-eight tomorrow, Oct. 22nd. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but now I know that it was a lifetime ago. I used to tell her that she was born half an hour before her due date–and she liked that. There’s not much to say that I haven’t been posting on here so I’ll just leave it at this for tonight.

It’s almost eight months that Sara left. Just as I start to think that I’m handling my grief better, the wave of sadness consumes me. Part of it has to do with the fact that her birthday is next week. The other part is because I miss her so much. I’ve mentioned before that she would call or text every night and tell me to have a good night. I miss those calls so much. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I have a short video that she made when she was practicing for an online teaching job. I listen to it often so that I won’t forget her voice. The video itself breaks my heart. She tried so hard for months to find a job and because of her past, nobody would give her a chance. I ask myself why society is so cruel that it won’t give someone the opportunity to turn their lives around. What kind of world do we live in that people aren’t valued? Maybe Sara, and thousands like her, wouldn’t go back to using drugs if they weren’t thrown aside because they made mistakes. I would like to ask these people if they’ve ever made mistakes in their lives–and if anyone ever gave them an opportunity to be able to move on and leave the past behind.

Sometimes I wonder why I am writing this blog. I can’t seem to get a following. As I do research for this and the companion book, I find that it’s emotionally difficult for me. Some days I tell myself to forget it but then I realize that I am writing it to help people. And also to help myself. Each day is becoming more difficult for me to deal with the loss. And then I look at pictures of her on my desk and on this blog, and I know that I’m also doing it for Sara. I signed up for some support groups on Face Book for parents of addicts. I shared my blog with them with the hope that they will find some support.

It’s hard to believe that October is just around the corner. Growing up, fall and winter were always my favorite times of year. It means the end of summer and the beginning of the holiday season. Sara’s birthday is October 22nd. She loved her birthday–even when she was little. I think about past birthdays and can’t seem to remember them–from when she was little until she was older. It’s like a fog for me. The time has gone by so quickly–too quickly. I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a terrible year. We’ve dealt with (and still are) a pandemic, financial stress, loss of jobs for many, loss of loved ones for many. It is certainly a year that I will never be able to process and come to terms with.

I just came across the fact that September is National Recovery Awareness Month. The journey from using to admitting to yourself that you have an addiction to becoming sober to recovery is a long, difficult journey. It is difficult for the addict and for the family that loves her or him. By showing the person how much we love them and want to help them, they may be given the motivation to stay on the path of recovery. When Sara was in the rehab program, I went to see her every Sunday, which was family visiting day. Boy she looked forward to those visits, as did I. While many of the ladies had visitors many did not. I wonder if they didn’t have anyone who cared. Perhaps their family had grown tired of years of being there for them. Perhaps they got tired of the excuses and the manipulation. I admit that I felt that way many times over the years. But in the end I’m so glad that I was there for Sara–because I believed in her. I believed that she wanted to stay clean and make a new life for herself and her daughter. The odds were against Sara, as they are for so many who make the same mistakes she did. She just couldn’t make it, as much as she wanted to. And as much as I wanted her to be successful, the odds in this world were against her.

Today is August 27, 2020 and it has been six months since Sara left this world. Everything I have written about in previous posts is all I would have to say today. The loss is just as big as it was the first day, if not bigger. The grief is just as overwhelming in my mind. There are no words to describe the emptiness I feel so I’m not going to try.

In the midst of all the complexities of the human mind, is a core of simplicity. Emotions surround us every day; we all know the feelings of happiness, fear, sorrow, being unhappy, anxiety, contentment, surprise, failure, and accomplishment. These feelings certainly occur all day-every day.  What we may not realize is in our brain, with the limited amount of area that the brain has, the memories are filed away in a section simply labeled “Feelings”. Thus as real and as different as these feelings are when they first appear to us, so is it how much they are all the same when taken back out from the storage area of our mind. With this it is easy to understand why we would miss somebody that did so much wrong, Somebody who brought us so much pain, so much enjoyment and laughter. I too loved Sara Babrove. I too felt many, many different feelings for Sara. And, I too miss Sara and what I miss most about Sara is…Sara.
I pray that God  watches over Sara and I pray her soul is with her Grandparents that loved her so much. Love her always Sara’s “Uncle Lee”

Throughout our lives, we encounter people from all walks of life. We like some of them and we dislike some; we fall in love and at times we fall out of love; best friends become enemies; families often grow apart. Everyone is different–and how boring would our word be if we were all the same? 2020 has taught us one thing–in the end, we have no control over anything that happens. Since March, we have seen the rapid spread of COVID-19. At the time that I’m writing this (August 7th), over 100,000 people have died in the United States. We wear masks (hopefully) and we carry around hand sanitizer; many of us get our groceries delivered and haven’t been able to attend birthday parties or even weddings in our own family. This is usually the time of year that I’m counting the days until we travel to New England for some cold weather. The tickets are generally bought and Maria has agreed to babysit our dog. But not this year. This year we can’t go because of COVID-19. But I won’t remember 2020 as the year that I couldn’t go to New England, or attend birthday parties, or a wedding. I’ll remember this year as the year that I lost Sara for the last time. You see, parties will be celebrated when this is over and life is back to some kind of normal. But this time Sara isn’t coming back.

As much as we try to move on with grief, I’m not sure we always do. As I tell clients I’m working with, it doesn’t go away but becomes easier to deal with. It comes in waves. I can be talking to someone or just sitting and typing and then it comes over me. The constant questions of why is she gone. And why didn’t she come to me. And how much I miss her. When I started this blog, my goal was to write a small book to accompany it. A book for parents to refer to and get help from. But when I research facts on drugs, it becomes overwhelming to me. I get angry and sad all at the same time. I read laws that were put in place in the mid-1970s to stop the rampage in our country–or against our country? So, I put the book aside and tell myself I can’t do it. But then, I take it out and work on it again. I haven’t talked about my writing here, trying to keep it separate. But the first book I wrote, “Envelopes of Hope,” was inspired by Sara when she went into rehab and sent a letter thanking me for not giving up on her. It’s a novelette about a young girl who fell into the darkness of drugs and was “saved” by the love, support, and inspiration of her family. While it is fiction, it is about the importance of family involvement in recovery. If you would like a free copy, either ebook or paperback, please email me through the contact page. Just put “Sara” on the subject line and send your mailing information.

I’m finding that the nights are hard for me. I miss the phone calls that came throughout the day and evening. For four years, I got a call before she went to bed every night. Sometimes it was a text, but mostly it was a call. “Have a good night, Mom.” How can I possibly not miss the calls? I have a little video that she put together for a job interview and I watch it often so I can hear her voice. I just need to hear her voice and make sure I don’t forget how she sounded when she called me at night.

Grief is a strange emotion. It never fully goes away and in some cases it never gets easier. In the beginning, there is shock and then the tears. And more tears. And more tears. Do the tears ever subside? Do they just stop? Everyone’s grief is different, just as all deaths are different. When Sara died, I was shocked. It happened so fast and was so unexpected. I talked to her an hour and a half before she was found. Almost five months later, I’m still asking myself how and why. Sitting next to her in the hospital a few hours later, I asked her what happened. But of course, even on a ventilator, I knew she was no longer with me; but I asked anyway. A nurse told me I could leave, but I remember telling her, “No, we started this journey together, and we’ll finish it together.” I hope Sara heard me–who knows. I’d like to think that she heard all of my words that night and in the morning. The shock has lessened but it’s still continues almost five months later; the tears come in waves; but the sadness has only gotten bigger. While working at my desk, I look at the pictures I have of her and I ask her what happened. I know that she can hear me. I’m her mother and I just know.

June 28 marked four months that Sara has been gone. I have been busy working so haven’t been on here for awhile. And now that I am, I’m at a loss for words. When I look in the mirror, I wonder who that is looking back at me. Something has changed about my appearance. I’m older and look more tired than I did four months ago. Grief is strange. In the beginning, I was in shock and then a blanket of sadness like I have never experienced was thrown over me. Now it comes in waves. I wake up in the morning trying to remember if she came to me in my dreams, but I can’t remember, so I guess she hasn’t. I need to spend more time researching for my book and posting information on here. Drugs have destroyed the fabric of this country and, although I can’t stop it myself, I want to try and save one family.

It’s been 107 days now since Sara left. I have good days and bad days, but mostly bad. Sadness comes in waves and when it does, I don’t handle it very well. A part of me tells me that I shouldn’t–that I owe it to Sara as her mother to be sad all of the time. Not that she’d want me to be sad, but I think she’d understand why I am. She told me in January that she didn’t think that she’d live until the end of the year. We talked about that and then she said that she didn’t want to live if her father or I died, that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Strange words, I remember thinking. And I can’t get the words out of my mind. Sara thanked me for not giving up on her when she went into rehab. I don’t remember thanking her for not giving up on how she loved me. But I do thank her. Don’t be me–keep your child on the right path–no matter how hard it is.

It’s been eleven weeks now since Sara has been gone. I would say it’s still new and it will get better with time. No, it won’t. I will never stop loving her or missing her. I sit and look at her pictures and find myself looking into her eyes and wondering why she went down the path that she did. What made her choose a life of drugs? What attracted her to negative people? Why? There is no answer. I’m looking at the picture underneath these words while I type. She is smiling and happy–and looking back at me. I’ll never have the answers to my questions and that’s what I want to emphasize to people with children–watch for the signs that they have the wrong friends. Set rules and tell them it’s to keep them safe. They don’t have to like you–they just have to be safe, choose good people to be friends with, and stay away from drugs. You make the choices for them–kids make the fun choices, not the ones that will protect them from harm. That’s your job. I don’t want you to sit and look at pictures of your child and wonder what happened to them.

I’ve been trying to focus on my new book that will be a companion/support book to this website. Although I’ve written and self-published two novels and two novelettes, this is more like writing a research paper. But I also want it to be personal. It’s a challenge and an important one. My goal is to educate parents about the different drugs, the dangers involved, risk factors that may lead to using (so that interventions can be made), and resources. I hope it will be a meaningful tool for parents to turn to.

It has been six weeks since Sara died. Some days it seems like it’s only been hours and other days it seems like an eternity. A parents’ worst nightmare is the loss of a child. As a mother, my mind wanders back to when she was born. Like so many babies, she developed jaundice and had to spend an extra day in the hospital. I remember being heartbroken that I had to leave her because they wouldn’t let me stay with her. It has been so many years now that I have trouble remembering when my children were small–and the things that they did.” After Sara’s behaviors escalated, all I recalled were the hard times–the wrong friends, the negative boyfriends, the pawn shops calling. And then all of the years where we didn’t communicate and hear from her at all. Our biggest fear was that she would overdose and we’d never see her again. I always wondered when she would hit her rock bottom–in fact, I waited for it to happen. But it never did, for whatever reason. And then in 2015, I don’t recall when, she was having financial difficulties and was about to be evicted. One thing I never did was give Sara money. But when she needed food or something essential, I would get it to her. But I refused to help her with the rent. The eviction happened and she moved in with someone. And that’s when she overdosed on heroin and made the decision to detox and go into rehab. Her rock bottom had finally come. Sara would tell people that if I had enabled her and helped her with rent, she would never have gone into a program and would ultimately have died. It wasn’t an easy decision at the time, but when a person is enabled, they become dependent on the one who is enabling them and they don’t figure out how to survive on their own. It’s not easy for a parent to sit back and take a chance that their child may die. But by enabling them, say with money, aren’t we helping them buy that drug that they want so badly? I think so, and that’s why I refused to buy more than food or something essential. Even though she is now gone, I will never regret my decision five years ago.

I went through Sara’s papers and other items that I had taken out of her room two weeks ago and put in the trunk of my car. There were things like books, a few pieces of jewelry, a ton of make-up bags, etc. There was also an NA book I had bought for her and worksheets that she did while in the rehab. And papers–cards of encouragement I had sent to her, medical records, and dozens of other papers. Some of them brought me to tears and others made me smile. But in looking at the NA materials, I found the Serenity Prayer and want to post it here: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”–Reinhold Niebuhr. 1932-1933

When Sara was around twelve years old, she developed some behaviors that we knew were out of our league. It began with stealing from us, lying, and sneaking. At some point, (I don’t remember how old she was), we took her for counseling. One day I received a call from the therapist’s office, informing me that our insurance would no longer pay because too many appointments had been cancelled or broken. I remember saying that she only missed a few because my baby had been sick. I later found out that we would drop her off and she never went upstairs to the session. I was angry for a long time that the therapist didn’t bother to call me and ask why Sara wasn’t coming. I’m not that angry any more because now I know he didn’t call because he was incompetent. Anyway, the behaviors continued and got worse as Sara got older. I didn’t know the extent of the drug use–I did know about the skipping school, lying, stealing from her family, etc. She always chose the wrong friends–the ones who were positive in her life weren’t the ones she hung out with. Therapy didn’t help and in those days I didn’t know the things I know now. There wasn’t a Marchman Act to get her court ordered for a drug evaluation; there weren’t programs that I knew of. And if there were, I wouldn’t have been able to afford them. So, the years passed and the friends got worse. By the time she was eighteen, she had moved out and come back three times. On the day of the fourth and last time, I had given her the ultimatum that if she left with the guy she was getting into trouble with, she would would not be able to come back. And she left. And she never lived with me again. There were periods over the years when we didn’t hear from her, speak to her at all, or have any idea what was going on. There were arrests and abortions; there were countless guys and countless jobs. Having always been bright and a good student, in the middle of everything she got a master’s degree. But the drug use continually got worse. Almost fifteen years ago she had a child. My hope was that she would get her life together and have a reason to change. It didn’t happen. Then four years ago, she overdosed on heroin and almost died. That’s when she finally went into rehab and got clean. But her health was bad from the years of abusing her body; she had uncontrolled diabetes and kidney disease. Suddenly, two weeks ago, she died and we still don’t know why. And not knowing is horrible. I know it won’t change the fact that she’s gone, but I need to know what happened. Through this blog, I want to be able to give hope to parents and their children who are making the wrong decisions. Sara had a lot of potential–she was very bright. But she made the wrong choices throughout her life and I don’t want to see families go through what mine is going through. And I don’t want to see another life wasted.