PITTSBURGH _ A short while before Casey Schwartzmier died, she had a frank conversation with her mother.
She'd been on Facebook and saw an obituary that had gone viral. It was for a man whose family, rather than writing that he died "suddenly," told everyone about his battles with addiction. Casey, who had struggled with her own drug addiction for years, told her mom that if she ever died of an overdose, she wanted the same thing.
"Tell them. Tell them my story. Maybe it would help somebody who's struggling," Casey said.
And then, in what her mom said was typical Casey fashion, she cracked a joke and began talking about her upcoming trip to California, where she was excited to check into a rehab facility and get help for her addiction.
"She didn't plan on dying," her mother, Michelle Schwartzmier, said last week. "She didn't want to die. She just said, 'That is what I would want.'"
