The last day I spent with Casey was on a beautiful, sunny day in June on the beach in Sea Isle City. She was coming from Ocean City and I was already laying on the beach soaking up the sun waiting for Casey to arrive. Casey called me when she arrived and I looked up to see her coming down the beach. She looked adorably cute, like always, and I noticed immediately we were wearing the same bathing suit. As she approached she started laughing and complimented my suit. We both thought it was completely hilarious, and the fact we both had blonde hair made us look like twins. Casey said I looked like her big sister because of the height difference and that she looked like, “the little sister trying to be cool imitating her big sister.” she was too funny.
We layed on the beach on this gorgeous day and soaked up the sun and chatted about boys, life, working out, all the typical girl topics while we flipped through the pages of gossip magazines.
We then decided to go on a walk and get ourselves moving. During our walk we talked about just about everything. Casey was telling me all about the observer, and now that she has a blackberry she felt like she was constantly working. She told me all about her love for writing and how she wanted to live in the city. I had always known this about Casey, but they way she spoke so enthusiastically about it made me so excited for her. I was so impressed with all of her ambitions. We continued to talk about our families and she told me how close she was with her parents and how proud of her parents, especially that her mom going back to nursing school and her dad taking counseling classes. She always told me how her and Brett were close and she tried to be the “cool big sister”
In the middle of our walk we came across a cracked bird egg. Casey immediately noticed it, I would have just walked over it, but of course being the incredibly observant person she was Casey noticed it. She bent down and examined the egg and I kept telling her that we should leave it, but she insisted on finding out what was inside. I couldn’t believe she was going to actually open the egg!
She found a nearby sea shell and lightly tapped the top of the egg and broke open a small piece to revel a curled up bird inside the shell. It was one of the most interesting things I have seen, a bird so compact and in that stage of life. Casey then proceeded to put the egg further back from the water to keep it from getting wet and we continued on.
Casey was one of the most curious, ambitious and driven people I have ever known. She was beautiful, smart, interesting and I loved spending time with her. She was always so interested when I spoke to her and she never let me get away with not explaining something or missing something I said.
I feel so incredibly fortunate I got to spend that day on the beach with Casey. We ended our day by saying goodbye and making a joke about matching bathing suits the next time we went to the beach. I will never forget that last day I spent with Casey, nor will I forget the sound of her voice, her laugh and the incredible person that she was.