Help Give Sarah Cassin a Loving Farewell

Sarah Cassin was a bright light in the world that wouldn’t go out, no matter how many rain clouds she was shoved under. Even now, having left her beautiful, gentle body unexpectedly on Friday morning, 7/19/2024, her light is grander than ever for those with eyes to see it.

We - her mother, grandmother, and close friends - are reaching out to you, her neighbors, friends, and loved ones, to help support her final earthly needs. With your support, Sarah will be cremated with honor, love, and care, and her ashes shared to her mother in Oregon after a small, heart-full celebration of life here in the Hudson Valley - her last home in this life.

Some of you know her through her volunteer work at the Gardiner Library, or the local charity thrift shops, or through her loving care of bees with her partner Chris Harp, or maybe from her many years in New York City. Wherever you knew Sarah from, you know she was beyond special.

Anything you can spare and share to shine your love back to for this beautiful soul that was Sarah Lorraine Cassin is deeply appreciated. All who loved and continue to love her are profoundly grateful for you and your contribution to her final rest

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A remembrance of Sarah:

I will miss her in physical form as long as I live, because knowing she was “knocking around” the Hudson Valley or the world in general was enough to warm my heart. Heck, just knowing someone like her could even exist was enough to warm my heart and soul!

But beyond that, I got to be her friend. Not only her friend, but we were as tight as sisters, "sisters of the heart," we said. We were each other's safe haven. She held that sacred safe space for many.

Sarah spent her time volunteering at farms, for children's programs, charity thrift shops, libraries, to help the unhoused, to care for animals, to advocate for nature, and much much more. She was the neighbor who blessed the neighborhood. You had only to meet her to love her. Mutual friends would joke when we saw someone new fall in love with Sarah after just a few minutes - "she just has that effect on people!"

I envisioned us getting old together. Maybe getting a cottage in the woods to live, laugh, love, and craft our days into history. By God, I thought we had years and years- decades ahead of us. We could bear the pain of living together, we could lean, like Forrest Gump and Bubba so our heads didn’t lay in the mud.

She died unexpectedly, on the ground, outside, in the beauty of her yard where the herbs and grasses are a little wild and long, tangled by the wind, the chickens who like to beg in the kitchen were out roaming for the day, and her beloved cats Morgan and Anna ran freely. She passed on having looking up at the morning sky, through the boughs of the grand Pine behind her head. She died being so profoundly loved and cherished that it bewilders me that so much love could exist in the whole Universe.

And gosh if I didn’t fall apart at the news of her passing, and will again. Because this can’t be real, like an alternate universe is spinning so tantalizingly close to ours and she’s there still chugging along with a sweet, high pitched whistle on her lips and a wide eyed nod, eyes glinting with glitter, and knowing, and fun, and mystery…delight and secrets. And this here, this is just an opportunity for me to wake up to where I’ve taken her and life for granted. But it is real, and we must each take this opportunity, to wake up our hearts - something available to us the whole time.

In Sarah's own words; "All hearts together!"

Thank you for your love, and your generosity. You are worthy of great love too <3