Answering the unanswerable questions.
That street corner still exists but it looks very different then it did on that day, at sunset, May 5, 2015, when I saw my son alive for the very last time.
To understand the death of my son Cree on May 5, 2015 has required a tremendous amount of self examination and processing. The answer is, there is no way to understand his death. It did not happen due to a rational, reasonable, logical process. Instead it requires the acceptance of the unacceptable, along with the examination of a number of factors, including transgenerational and intergenerational trauma, social and cultural historical perspectives, and a deep reflection on my own life and history.
A good place to start when finding balance within a world that presents us with chaos and challenges is to practice mindfulness and radically accept that there are and will always be elements in life that occur that we cannot control. The only way to peace is from a place of accepting that peace is walking the line between change and acceptance of what cannot be changed.
I have been working through my own trauma as well as learning and practicing ways to find this balance. In practice, one of the most useful exercises in healing has been practicing a process that is rooted in self study and observation of my own feelings. It is useful and a relatively streamlined practice. The first step is observing that I am having a feeling. This often starts with the simple observation of unease in my body or mind. It’s funny how often we can simply find ourselves caught in the unconscious acts of a hypo or hyper aroused nervous system. This is understandable as our bodies way of staying safe/ keeping ourselves safe; and instinctive response for survival.
In order to try to contextualize, to understand what happened, I have found that there truly is no “why” other than finding peace in every moment by bringing myself out of ruminations on the past and worry about the future.
There is no reason behind what happened to Cree. It served no purpose for me and did not make the world a better place in any way, shape, or form. It was a horrible, tragic, heartbreaking waste of an amazing and brilliant human. The impact on all of us who loved him (are capable of feeling love) was devastating.
What I have found is that when I trace the “why” - there are answers. They are not meaningful in the sense that Cree died to serve a something good. Cree died because of a system that is failing all of us. He died because of greed blocking compassion and harm reduction. Yes, there is epigenetic trauma present, but the true cause of his death was not a trauma history, it was because of those who lack empathy and would profit off of the exploitation and death of others in order to horde resources.
None of these problems started with him nor were they his to carry. If we had checks and balances in place designed to care for those in need of support without question, Cree would not have died. If the companies profiting from selling opioids and marketing SSRI's and statens, and weight loss medications; so many untested medications - to the population as a whole - were held accountable Cree would not have died. If the EPA was actually functional and protecting the population from exposure toxins at superfund sites and unfettered exposure to thousands of toxins through manufacturing, dumping of chemicals into our groundwater, spraying of all of our food with glyphosate and other poisons in order to make more and more and more money for corporations that benefit nobody in the end, Cree would not have died.
Cree died as part of a long line of loss, trauma, and pain that has been instilled in our human nervous systems in order to serve the purpose of those who would grab all resources and horde them. Cree died because of a long history of greed and violence perpetrated for over 2000 years by those who believe they have a right to other people, other animals, the earth as a whole, for no other purpose but to feed their inability to have functional thoughts and a full range of emotions because their brains stopped working properly over the course of time due to being poisoned in the name of profit. They don't even know it. Consider why there is an epidemic of what would call personality disorders and dementia. This is the history of colonialism, fascism, and patriarchal white supremecy that has led to the transgenerational and epigenetic trauma that we are now collectively grappling with as conscious humans.
-Susannah Castro, excerpt from "Canaries in a Coal Mine", 2025.
Photo: Cree and his sister Nia, September, 2014
