AUBURN — After sharing her story of guilt and loss following the suicide of her oldest son, Hallie Twomey has been inundated with offers.
“I am honored to be able to help in Scattering CJ next week while I’m in Phoenix.”
“I live in Poole, Dorset, in the UK. It’s a beautiful seaside town situated on the south coast. We’d love to help scatter CJ. R.I.P. young man.”
“I live on beautiful Bull Shoals Lake in the heart of the Ozark Mountains. I would be willing to scatter CJ in the lake, which would take him eventually into the Mississippi River, and he might be in New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, if he is so inclined.”
After her story appeared in the Sun Journal and later was covered by The Associated Press and CNN, Twomey’s received more than 1,700 offers to help give C.J. one last adventure by scattering his ashes around the world.
“It’s just been more than I could have expected, more than I could have hoped for,” Twomey said.
The scattering of C.J.’s ashes is scheduled through the next year. So many offers came in from so many sources that Twomey has created an online form for sign-ups and is asking “Scattering CJ” volunteers to use it. Although many offers came through her Facebook page, which she monitors daily, others were spread across the Web, and she was afraid she was missing some.
Recently, a friend took over Facebook monitoring for a bit. Days before Christmas, Twomey participated in a paired-organ donor exchange, donating her kidney to someone whose friend or family member donated a kidney to someone else. She and everyone in the exchange is doing well.
“It’s been a long time since anything has felt the right thing to do since C.J. died,” Twomey said. “Scattering C.J. and giving up my kidney just seemed like, I don’t know, the best possible thing I could be doing right now.”
ltice@sunjournal.com
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