Hawley family isn’t coping; they endure
Brooke Hawley was an outstanding student-athlete, daughter, sister and friend.
(Photo courtesy: Hawley family)
LAS VEGAS -- Appearance-wise, not much has changed in the Hawley household.
Big-game trophies hung with precision, decorated and smelling spicy as if we're in the midst of Fall season, Golden Knights pillows and blankets and trinkets scattered about. It's a beautiful home, and cozy for any visitor.
Still in their place as well, are the wealth of items belonging to Aaron and Rhonda's daughter Brooke, in each respective room.
Appearances aren't everything, unfortunately. Because everything has changed in the Hawley household since March 29, 2018.
Brooke and two other teenagers were killed when a drunk driver slammed into their stopped car at a stoplight. A fourth teen survived.
Life as the Hawleys knew it - full of laughter, and vibrancy, and energy, and wildness, and love, and camping, and hunting, and trips to their cabin - ended abruptly.
The Hawley's nightmare continues.
I knew Brooke, and it's not fair.
Not for Aaron. Not for Rhonda. Not for her sisters Heather and Ashley.
To this day Rhonda Hawley reminds me every two or three other times we share tears about her beautiful, red-haired baby of the crew who attended Centennial High School, that she was amazed a local sports reporter who had mentioned her in a few game capsules or tweets actually knew who she was, and recognized her by name.
Brooke, according to Rhonda, thought that was one of the coolest things during her high-school athletic career.
I can assure you of this, it was much cooler knowing the electric young lady, than it was her knowing me.
"One minute there's this crazy, wonderful, alive child that you raised," Rhonda Hawley said. "And then she's gone."
The Hawleys agreed to be part of this month's theme at WGRamirez.com: "Coping with Loss."
For me, writing about my grandfather, and about Marc-Andre Fleury's coping mechanism after his father's death were tributes. But how do you put into words what a family does to cope when their lives were shattered by a monstrous act?
The Hawleys don't cope, they painfully endure.
I wish coping were easier for such a beloved couple, and their two older daughters.
"It's an emotional nightmare, 100 percent emotional nightmare," Aaron Hawley said. "It doesn't stop, it doesn't stop. You feel guilty for not thinking about them. It just kills me when I think I haven't thought about her for four hours. It tears me down. If I go a full day without thinking about her I'm mad at myself, because she mattered. And she's not here to know that. I don't believe in afterlife, but if there is such a thing, I would be ashamed to know that she knew I didn't think about her.
"My daughter never got to live a life. I'll never be the same."
LIFE OF THE PARTY
Brooke Hawley: “She made friends wherever she went.” (Photo courtesy: Hawley family)
If there was a happening, an event, a pick-up soccer game, a gathering, a party, a barbecue, and you knew Brooke Hawley - she was going to be there. There was no getting around the fact Brooke was the life of the event, whatever it may be.
"Anytime you were with Brooke you know you were gonna have a good time," longtime friend Karissa Martinez said. "She fit in with everybody. She was fun and relaxed. She made everybody comfortable being around her."
And it didn't matter what clique you came from, what team you played for, what school you attended - if Brooke was there, everybody was going to get along.
Point blank, Brooke was the person who held things together for teammates, friends, family members and sometimes, even strangers.
"She wanted other people to be happy, she wanted other people to laugh," said Allyssa Larkin, who has known the Hawleys since she and Brooke were in soccer at elementary-school age. "That's why she had so many friends. She made friends wherever she went. She reached so many people because she was the life of the party. She could make anybody laugh; she was so outgoing."
Rhonda Hawley admitted she had no idea just how popular Brooke was until she passed, after reading droves of social media posts and comments, and saw the number of guests and speakers at an emotional Celebration of Life that filled a Southpoint Hotel ballroom.
It's not fair for any of those people, either.
The friends, and classmates, and teachers, and coaches, and other parents.
The abundance of appreciation for her daughter and what she meant to so many people, it adds to the bitter anger the Hawleys have for the person whose blood alcohol level two hours after the crash was 0.28 percent - more than three times the legal limit for drivers in California.
The court asked the Hawleys for an impact statement to be read aloud during hearings.
"They want to know the impact that her death did, when you're talking to the courts for sentencing," Rhonda Hawley said. "How do you say what the impact is? It doesn't end. We can't as a family breathe together."
How could they when the life of their party is no longer with them?
THE ATHLETE
Brooke Hawley after her team won the 2017 State Cup. (Photo courtesy: Hawley family)
If she wasn't talking to Rhonda about soccer, or school, or who did what to whom at lunch, or what boy was crushing on her, or the silly posts on Twitter she saw, or the hundreds of other things daughters share with their mothers, Brooke was Aaron's sidekick. She was his baby, but she was his buddy. She loved her outdoorsman father and doing things outdoors. She loved being an athlete and playing soccer for Centennial or her club team. She loved swimming competitively.
She also fell in love with personal training, and she knew the only way to get better, and if she planned on pursuing a scholarship was if she found a way to enhance her game and become better conditioned.
Here's where I remember Brooke the most, and came to appreciate her bubbly and wild personality. She began training with my son, a certified personal trainer who was in the middle of an intense prep for his pro card and a bodybuilding title. The two, in ways, pushed one another.
"Brooke was definitely one of the more enthusiastic clients I've ever had, and she quickly became part of our perFIcT family," Jordin Ramirez said. "At the time, I was still training clients out of a big-box gym or my garage, and in dealing with so much outside noise, if I knew Brooke was on my schedule, I also knew my day was about to get better. The things she would come up with to talk about would keep me smiling. But when it came time to work, she was on a mission."
What adds to Rhonda and Aaron's pain is when Brooke's life was taken tragically, letters had started coming in from colleges. The recruitment had begun, as soccer coaches were reaching out. And for Aaron, he said he didn't care whether she played at a big-name school or a Division-III college. It was the excitement of road trips to different schools, and the experience of narrowing her choices down to where she would further her education.
"Whatever she did, she would have been great at it," Rhonda Hawley said. "I miss what she was gonna be."
Ramirez mentioned two people he wished were still here to see his dream come true, that being the opening of his personal training facility, the "perFIcT gym." Brooke was one of them, as he is sure she would have been on the roster of athletes who would come to train with him when they'd be home from college.
"There's no doubt she was a bonafide athlete who came to the gym with a purpose," Ramirez said. "I could always count on Brooke to give me her best effort. It took some time getting used to not seeing her name on my calendar. Just as my friend Neo (Kauffman) will live within my gym's memory, Brooke will always have her spot in the perFIcT family."
ENDURE IN SILENCE
Brooke Hawley with her father, Aaron. (Photo courtesy: Hawley family)
Aaron and Rhonda Hawley barely speak about Brooke to one another. At her 18th birthday, the couple went to dinner and when she came up in conversation they couldn't look at one another. It's not that they refused, they couldn't.
While Rhonda and I sat at their kitchen table for this interview, Aaron was tying flies for the upcoming fishing season at Panguitch Lake in Utah, only contributing to our conversation with his back turned and focused on what lure will haul in the trout he throws right back into the lake.
Aaron wasn't being rude, and I knew that. He's the complete opposite of rude. Aaron is every bit of a rugged outdoors guy; a blue-collar worker whose calloused hands barely tell the story of the work he's put in for his family over the years. But he's a sweetheart of a guy.
Unfortunately, the only callouses that matter now or the ones on his heart. So he simply couldn't bring himself - nearly three years later - to engage in an ongoing conversation about his sidekick.
"I don't talk about it," Aaron Hawley said through tears. "The worst thing for me is I can't talk to my children. It's too hard. They're so penalized by it. I can't help my daughters because I can't deal with it."
For both Rhonda and Aaron, as much as Brooke was the life of the circle of friends, she was the life of their household.
"You can't talk about it as much, and that hurts," Rhonda Hawley added. "You don't move on. You don't get over it. In some ways it gets worse. You spend a lot of time wondering what they would be, what they would be doing."
Both know, what she'd likely be doing right now is enjoying her sophomore year in college, playing soccer and pursuing a degree.
Thus, the range of emotions for the Hawleys take them from being sad, to feeling tragic, to feeling anger, to feeling grief ... and that's just on their way from getting out of bed to brushing their teeth every morning.
"I love talking about my daughter, that's part of grieving, but it's hard; the grief is devastating," Rhonda Hawley said. "I don't think you ever stop. How do you have a life that somebody was in - crazy, alive like she was - how do you just not acknowledge that.
"My biggest fear is her being forgotten, and she will be by most people someday."
I don't think so Rhonda.
She'll always be the life of the party.
