A local family picks up the pieces

Crystal Estell died of a meth overdose Jan 7. She was 37. She left behind three children, two parents and a long trail of wounded loved ones.

The ravage of drugs, Crystal's parents Ron and Debe VandenBoom said Tuesday, slither beyond the life of the user. Drugs shake the lives of everyone connected to the user.

"Life is full of choices. You make the wrong choice, you pay the price and other people pay it as well. Your actions are not alone," Ron said.

Crystal grew up in Havre and graduated Havre High School. Her parents said Crystal began dabbling with drugs right after high school.

"She just started running with the wrong crowd," Ron said, adding that his daughter may have started doing drugs even earlier.

Despite a history of drug use, the VandenBooms said they were surprised to find out Crystal had died of a meth overdose.

"She was on meth for 10 years, and then quit for 8 years," Debe said. "And within a week, after she got back on it - for whatever reason - she died of an overdose."

Crystal lived in Gillette, Wyoming, when she died. The Gillette police report says a caller, later identified as Crystal's niece, reported Jan. 7 at 3:23 p.m. that her aunt had blue lips and wouldn't wake up. The responding officer and EMT found Crystal lying on the couch on her back. They began performing "life-saving" measures.

The time of death was called at 3:53 p.m., the report said.

During an interview with police, the niece who called police said Crystal had lain down to take a nap an hour before. She was fine. The niece said she didn't think much of the noises Crystal made while asleep because she was a frequent sleepwalker.

It was when Crystal's 1-year-old boy, Salem, started jumping on his mom's torso and head, the niece said, that she realized something was wrong. She then tried to wake Crystal, who wasn't breathing. She told Crystal's 12-year-old, Paige, to take the baby into another room and then called police.

A Jan. 29 toxicology report says Crystal died of a methamphetamine overdose.

The police report indicates Crystal was a heavy drinker, had a history of painkiller use and took the prescribed Clindamysim - an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections - and Trazadone, an antidepressant used to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, insomnia, and in addition with other treatment, alcohol dependence.

Her parents said Crystal had many vices. She took anything she could get her hands on, Ron said. Their daughter's drug use had been a cause of strife between them for years.

"She never thought herself as an attractive girl. She always chose from the bottom of the barrel, for lack of a better way of putting it," Ron said. "If a nice guy came along, she wouldn't want anything to do with him."

"She was a bum magnet," Debe added right away.

Occasionally, Crystal would "show some promise," they said.

"Starting college, or whatever, and she'd get our hopes up that this was the big turn," Ron said. "And she'd slide right back where she was."

The drugs were a symptom, the VandenBooms agreed. Their daughter had self-worth issues, she battled depression - those were the problems. The genes their daughter inherited didn't help. Ron and Debe said Crystal was pre-disposed to have chemical dependency issues. Debe said she's an alcoholic going on 32 years of sobriety.

Crystal's death has left a trail of hurt and unresolved issues in the lives of those closest to her.

Rachel Watson, Crystal's older sister, called her little sister a "beautiful disaster."

"It is really hard to try to put my feelings into words right now, nothing sounds right," Watson said in a letter. "As most people know, my sister and I didn't have a great relationship the last couple years. I became angry with her and very impatient, so I cast her out and sat on the sidelines rooting for her and her sobriety so that we could be close again. ... I just couldn't watch from the front row anymore.

"I loved her and would protect her from all that I could," Watson continues. "Unfortunately I couldn't protect her from her worst enemy, herself. ... RIP baby sister, I love you and miss you dearly. I just wish I had told that to you as much as I have thought of you these last couple years. I will remember you as the beautiful sister you always were."

Crystal's brother, Lloyd Estell, wrote two letters, one of which was intended for the Havre Daily to print, in which he vents his frustration and reveals the emotional turmoil and lessons his sister's death has brought into his life.

"I've waited all afternoon and evening to say something because I couldn't find the right words," says the letter written the day after Crystal's death. "I don't think that I could possibly come up with all the right words to do justice to the situation, but I have to vent or I'll explode.

"MY SISTER DIED OF A METHAMPHETAMINE OVERDOSE!" the other letter begins. Lloyd Estell continues:

"I cried. I was angry. I felt like I should have known and that I should have done more. But she was a grown woman who made her choices and I forgive her. I wanted to blame the drug, but it's no more the fault of methamphetamine than it is the fault of Tide pods for people being foolish enough to eat them. It's a choice, and in most cases, an uneducated one. I'm not angry at meth. I'm not even angry with the person who sold it to her. They, too, made a choice. One that they have to live with for the rest of their life. I hope they do see this post someday and it changes their life."

Lloyd Estell writes that after a period of grieving, he used his sister's death as a teaching tool. He said he talked to his children about choices, minus the scare tactics and threats.

The consequences of bad choices are permanent, he said.

"Life is all about choices, isn't it? What we choose to do with our time on this earth and how we choose to react to our circumstances. I've always said that what you do with your own body should be your own business and that it shouldn't be the government or anyone else's place to tell you what you can or can't put into your body, providing that you bring no harm to another person. ... We teach our children generalized statements like 'don't do drugs' or 'this is your brain on drugs.' We tell them 'do drugs and you'll end up in jail.' ... Those tactics don't work and never have."

Their daughter's choices have changed their lives, the VandenBooms said.

The 12-and-1-year-old who were there that terrible Jan. 7 day in Gillette now live in Havre with them. Crystal's 14-year-old, Lillie, had already been living with them for many years, but the addition of her half brother and half sister has shuffled her life as well. She has moved into what used to be the guest room, which she now shares with her 12-year-old sister, Paige. Her former room has become the baby's room, as well as the community closet, where three large oak dressers filled with clothes, many of them donated, sit lined against the wall. Havre's Probation and Parole officers donated a great deal of clothes, as well as some money and a crib, Debe gratefully emphasized.

Life is faster and more tiring now for the VandenBooms.

"Everything is exhausting now," Debe said.

"Double the laundry, double the dishes, double places to go and drop people off," Ron added. "We had to completely rearrange the house.

"It's been a complete reorganization of our nice, calm, gentle, soon-to-be-be retired empty nest. Instead, everything is turned upside down," Ron said. "I'm not complaining about that. We did what we had to do and we'd do it again. And if there were three more of them, we'd take three more if we had to."

Would they do anything different to save their daughter, they were asked.

"I don't know what could we do," Ron said.

Lillie, who said she never had a great relationship with her mother, was in routine when she was surprised by the news.

"It came as a shock to me. I had just finished blow-drying my hair and I came out to make lunch, and the next thing I knew is he said, 'Your mother is on life support," Lillie said. "I felt regret because I hadn't talked to her or called her in a long time."

Lillie, who is active in debate, said she leaned a lot on her extracurricular activities to get through.

"I just put everything into these activities and made sure that I'm doing good in these activities and it's just something to keep me focused."

Paige's vices for dealing with the changes and tragedy are sunflower seeds and popcorn, Debe said.

Paige briefly talked about trasitioning from a large school district to one where "everyone is shoved in this tiny school," in Havre.

The youngest, 1-year-old Salem, made occasional noises while his sisters slid him Cheez-It crackers across the kitchen table.

The girls have lost both of their parents. Lillie said her father - whom she did not have a relationship with - died two years ago, also of drug-related causes. Paige's father died just a few weeks after her mother. His death, the VandenBooms said, is unknown.

For Lillie, her mother's death changed the way she looked at others whose lives are marred by similar tragedies. Since drugs have never been a temptation for her, that remained the case. What has changed, however, was how much she can relate to those affected by their loved ones' drug-related deaths.

"How many people is that person affecting now that they're gone?" Lillie said.

The VandenBooms, who admit to having dabbled in illegal drugs sometime in their lifetime, said it's time for parents to change how they talk to their children about drugs.

"Adults are lying to their kids. All they say is how bad drugs are," Debe said. "But what they don't say is that if you're under stress, or if you have a mental illness and you can't get away from that world, and you smoke it, it's the most wonderful drug. They don't tell them that."

"Lying to your kids, or trying to scare them, is not going to stop them from doing what their friends are doing, what the clique is doing," Ron added.

It's not about telling kids how great drugs are, the VandenBooms were careful to point out. It's about being honest, so the children don't feel betrayed.

Lillie said bitterness is what she's learning to deal with.

"The biggest thing I've learned from this entire experience is to not hold on to hatred and anger towards a person, because I did that a lot with my mom, even if a lot of it was subconscious and I didn't realize it until she passed away," Lillie said, adding it was similar to the hatred she had toward the father when he died.

"Truthfully, I don't remember the last time I called my mother. I don't remember the last time that I told her that I love her, checked up with her," Lillie said. "The fact that I will never have another opportunity to do so is really defeating. I spent all that time holding on to hatred when I could've been fixing that relationship, but I didn't."