My daughter, Reesa Kammerman, was involved in a tragic car
accident on July 12, 2013. She died three times that day, each time being
resuscitated. However, 16 days later she died for the last time.
Ten months after her death a video she had made was discovered
on the computer. It is a heart wrenching video that lasts only a few
minutes but ends with a beautiful message of hope! In the video she
tells of her challenges in life and how she overcame them. And she tells
it all without saying a word!
We had an overwhelming feeling to share it. We call the video
“Reesa’s Legacy”.
When the video was uploaded to YouTube we received several phone
calls from various news outlets asking to tell her story.
Once the stories were out we received so many comments and
learned how Reesa’s message has helped so many people. The response was so
great that I knew we had to do something more to help even more people.
We are making a short documentary of her life. We have hired an
interviewer and videographer to create a documentary of Reesa’s life. It
will document her challenges and triumphs, her fears and faith and her ultimate
triumph of unlocking the secrets of coping with her challenges.
Teachers, counselors, hospital staff, relatives and friends will
be interviewed to get different perspectives of her life. We have also
hired singers, songwriters and musicians to write songs using her journal
entries as the inspiration for the songs so it will be from a first person
perspective.
Once the DVD is completed, we will be launching a free phone app that will
give resources and help to those that have similar struggles in
life.
Our family had learned the hard way how to deal with and
overcome these obstacles. We don’t want others to have to learn the same
way.
I remember the first time that I walked into Reesa’s room and
saw her cutting and the blood was everywhere. I didn’t know what to do and
was almost frozen with shock. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to call
the counselor. She was able to guide me and helped us with the next steps.
And then there was the bulimia and suicide attempts
as an additional way she tried to deal with the pain of the rapes and sexual
abuse and the resulting court trial.
There was so much trial and error as we tried to find the best
way to help Reesa and our family. Over time we learned so much and
acquired the tools to help us. It turned out that all the resources were out
there but we didn’t know where to find them.
How much better off we could have been if we learned of these
resources earlier. But we ended up stumbling thru things while we found
out about the answers we were looking for. Everything from support groups and
counseling to crisis lines and hospitals.
Unfortunately during this time we also had to learn how to deal
with and ignore the stigma and labels people put on us. To say it was
difficult is a gross understatement.
How I wish we would have had a place to go to so we could have
learned sooner and spared weeks and months of trial and error. As a result of
our experiences we are designing a phone app that will be a one stop shop to
learn about the topics and the resources to help individuals and families
know where to get help.
We will be working closely with
counselors, hospitals, teachers and law enforcement to put together a very practical
and helpful app. It will be full of resources, links to support groups and
phone numbers for help. (The resources are already out there. People just need
to be pointed in the right direction.)
It will help parents and family
members, as well as classmates and friends. It will give tips and help to
answer tough questions.
Some of those questions
are:
Why does my daughter have an
eating disorder and what can I do to help?
My child is cutting, what
should I do?
What can I do if I am being
bullied at school and I'm getting so angry?
My friend is talking a lot
about suicide...what now?
One night while pondering what to do a stream of ideas came into
my mind and I started writing. Reesa had gone thru so many different types
of struggles throughout her life and I started to list them. After I listed
them I realized that she was able to relate to so many people and that
they could relate to her. Other teenagers seem to relate more to her than the
adults in their life. Here’s
the topics that we will be addressing on the app:
· Suicide
(hot lines, prevention)
· Self-harm
· Eating
disorders
· Abuse
(physical, sexual, emotional)
· Bullying
· Step
family
· Depression
& metal illness
· Substance
abuse & addictions (drugs, alcohol, porn, gambling)
· Dating
violence
· Grief,
death, dying, illness, counseling
· Teen
pregnancy
· Running
away
But it won’t stop there. We want to help remove the stigma and
misconceptions surrounding those that have different type of struggles
in their lives. This will help educate classmates, family
members and friends. We want to empower people to overcome their
challenges
be an advocate to help others do the same. The app will be
designed to help uplift and give daily encouragement by sending out
messages
of hope and inspiration to their phones throughout the day.
This project is being made possible by people donating their
time and talents and discounting their services. We are self-funding this project
but will be open to donations should anyone be inclined.
This app and documentary will be free to everyone!
You can get to know Reesa more by looking at the past posts on this blog.
The launch will be on her Celebration of Life on July 28th.
