Never Stop!

Also: I'm a cover girl (what?!), our mini-adventures, and the countdown to publication continues. But mostly: never stop.

The sincerest WELCOME! to all my recent subscribers. If you’re new here, it may be because you agreed to be on my launch team, and if I haven’t said it enough, I’m beyond grateful for your support.

Stay tuned for a book cover reveal and so much more.

See more about the launch team below. If you have no idea what I’m talking about and are interested in learning more, reply to this email and let’s chat!

News of the Day

In November, I was contacted by the folks at Health Monitor, who were putting together a publication on high cholesterol/familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and wanted to interview me and—get this—put me on the cover. What?!

From there, things happened quickly. I had a zoom interview with the lovely Amy Capetta, who made me feel entirely at ease, as if I were chatting with an old friend. A photographer, Jesse Turnquist from Turnquist Collective, came out to the house and, again, Kevin and I felt more comfortable than we’d imagined.

This week, the issue was published!

Health Monitor Magazine, June 2024. Kevin was thrilled to make the issue twice!

If you’d like a (free) copy of your own, fill out the form here.

What a wonderful way this has been to put FH and the work of the Family Heart Foundation in front of more people. Kevin and I are proud ambassadors, dedicated to spreading the word about FH and elevated Lp(a). Fellow ambassador Charlotte Muller is also included in this issue.

Does any of this spark questions? Does extremely high cholesterol and/or early heart events run in your family? Runs in the family is NOT a diagnosis. DM me! And remember how important it is to #knowyournumbers.

Wanderlust

This past month brought a visit to Lago, the restaurant where my son Kyle is a chef (located on beautiful Saratoga Lake in upstate New York), an overnight to Pennsylvania to visit the grandkids and their parents, followed by a one-day round trip on the train to NYC to meet up with Kevin’s cousins who were visiting from Ireland. No matter how busy we are, we’re always up for a mini-adventure and some family time.

Saratoga Lake, NY; Doylestown, PA; and Woodside, Queens, where we visited the street Kevin grew up on, his childhood apartment house, then met up with the cousins

Inspiration Everywhere

Here is where I typically highlight folks from the world of navigating grief and uncertainty who I hope will inspire you as they do me. This month, I’ll share a different story, one that illustrates this section’s title: inspiration truly is everywhere.

Last week, our family marked the 25th anniversary of my oldest son Eric’s death on June 12, 1999.

I’ve posted on social media on Eric’s birthday (March 26) and on this anniversary date ever since we all flocked to social media (for me, circa 2010). At times, I’ve wondered if it’s too much, if people have tired of hearing about who Eric was to me and all of us who knew him, if 25 years seems like a lifetime ago. (Spoiler alert: It sure does to me. And also, like a breath ago).

Yet again and again, my incredible group of friends assure me this is not the case, that even if they never met him, they’ve grown to feel as if they knew Eric through these posts. My essays. And for early readers, the book.

From Jean, a friend I made in 2015:

I never met Eric, but I remember when you shared this photo and…that beautiful smile and those piercing eyes jumped out at me. I loved hearing every story and every memory, and it taught me that grief is not something I needed to hide, and that joy exists even after loss. And that love just goes on and on. I’m grateful for that.

Oh, my heart. I’m beyond grateful for these words.

So this year, I ended my memorial post with one request:

“If you've read this far, and if you knew Eric, your sharing a photo or story—maybe one I've never seen or heard—in comments would be the greatest gift. There will be no more photos, no more new memories with my beautiful son, but when you share these with me, my world and my memories of him expand.”

Sure enough, even after all these years, there was indeed one new photo, this one from his Aunt Norma, of Eric driving our boat. For some reason, this one captured something about him many photos don’t. Maybe it’s he way his hand grasps the wheel, or the determined-yet-contented look on his face, or the hand in the background that surely belongs to his brother, Kyle, or maybe his sister, Kate. Maybe it’s seeing the wake trailing the boat, where each member of our family at one time or another stood wobbly-kneed on water skis, smiling wide, grateful for the gift of a gorgeous day.

Then, one by one, came the memories. I savored each one like a sip of the finest wine.

Fond memories of watching the little handsome boy up the street holding hands with his Mom grow up into a handsome young man!

…remembering all the great memories of J and Eric on their Hot Wheels on Avenue A. They were so young and had so much fun together.

I remember him and the impact he had on my life. I was Kyle’s age so Eric was like an older brother. I was deeply affected by his death even though we hadn’t seen each other in awhile. Your family will always be a part of my life. I was a stranger in a strange land and you made me and the rest of my southern family feel welcome and at home.

This is my Eric, a boy with a smile on his face, always singing, his blanket and dog by his side. You always knew where Eric was because [his dog] was close by.  

It’s wild, the song “Wish You Were Here” came on today on the drive home, and my youngest asked “what in the heck are we listening to?” And I told them the story of how I listened to that album with Eric on the last night I saw him, Memorial Day weekend out on Hedges Lake…

This next one, a surprise. Eric, tutoring English? Um, not what I would’ve expected. Maybe that makes me love this story even more:

Of the many fond memories I have with Eric, one always sticks with me the most and encompasses how he was with his friends. I'll never forget it. I was in jeopardy of not graduating, missed too many days of school and had to pass an English final to get through. When I told Eric of my stress he brought me to your house for I think a week straight and forced me to listen to him teach me. I was not an enthusiastic student to say the least and I remember him being so patient and I can still hear him say, “Dude, this is easy and it's important, let's get it done." He made it fun. We had a blast. He made everything fun. Always laughing and smiling. We stayed up late at night talking about literature, poetry analysis, essays, and girls. He put a lot of effort into helping me and of course I passed the final and we celebrated and laughed together. I miss him and think of him often.

Literature, poetry analysis, essays, and…girls?! I wonder, laughing, in which order?

And finally, a story I might not have thought was funny back then, but with the distance of time and fondness for our younger selves (his, mine, all of ours, really), makes me laugh as I imagine these two boys executing their scheme:

When we were younger, we used to occasionally take a large steel pry bar and drag it across the railroad tracks to set off the railroad crossing near the Cambridge Hotel. We would throw it into the woods and walk nonchalantly towards the street to see everyone’s bewildered look as they sat in their vehicles searching for a train that never came. Sending you peace and love during this difficult time! Love you Eric!

All to say: If you know someone who has lost, as Margo Fowkes would say, someone they can’t live without, never stop. Never stop saying their name. Never stop sharing a story, a memory, an experience you had with them. For those of us still here, the sentence that was our person’s life has a period now, a hard stop.

What you can offer, though, is perhaps the greatest gift of all: bringing our person back to us for a moment, allowing us to feel their aliveness, their essence. Allowing us to bask in the memories. In the love.

I have no better words than those of my friend, Jean:

Grief is not something I needed to hide, and…joy exists even after loss.

And that love just goes on and on.

Book News!

In exactly eight months—February 18, 2025—my memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, will be released from Motina Books. I’m so happy you’re with me on the journey to publication and look forward to engaging with you, my readers, in the coming months.

I’ve spent the last six weeks or so inviting friends and family to help bring this book to life, and I’ve been overwhelmed by your generosity and enthusiasm.

For those who are unfamiliar, the basics of joining my launch team include:

• read the digital advanced reader copy my publisher will send you, post a review to Goodreads (it can be brief! I have easy-to-follow directions!), then paste that review to Amazon on launch day or shortly after.

• preorder the book when it’s available

There are many other activities launch team members can choose to participate in, and knowing those who subscribe here, I have no doubt many of you will have ideas I haven’t thought of. I’m excited to hear them!

If I haven’t reached out to you and you’d like to help me launch The Full Catastrophe, please let me know in comments or reply to this newsletter.

Creating a cover is one of the most rewarding (and challenging) parts of bringing a book to life. We’ve had a final front cover since last summer, but in the past couple of weeks, we’ve settled on spine and back cover design for the paperback, a process that’s been alternately stressful and energizing. Like anything that requires work and deep thought and, most of all, compromise, once we arrived at the final product, it couldn’t have been more worth it.

Can’t reveal the cover yet (though I’m eager to share), but here’s a sneak peek!

That’s all for this time. Thank you so much, each of you, for reading this far, for sharing, and for joining this growing community of folks who believe in the importance of educating and supporting and sometimes holding each other up through all life throws our way.

As the sticker on my car’s rear window proclaims, “You Matter.”

• If you’d like to join my launch team, please reach out.

• If your LDL-C cholesterol is over 190, doesn’t change with lifestyle modifications, and you have a family history of early heart events, you could have FH. And ask your physician to test your Lp(a) (say it: “L-P-little a”), since it’s elevated in 1 in 5 individuals yet is hardly ever checked. Feel free to get in touch—I’m happy to chat with you and point you in the right direction to get the information you need.

• Never Stop—saying the name of loved ones people are grieving, sharing the photos, telling the stories. There’s no greater gift. I promise I’ll do the same for you.

Till next time,

Casey