it was not supposed to be like this.
Although she’s 25, Anna Chase looks older than her recently buried mother. She is controlled and carefully handled as she grapples with the practicalities of helping support her father’s household.
Every moment should be for them now, since Rachelle Chase, 41, was found dead in her Oakland home on October 6th.
Since that day, Anna has become a loving mother to Kingston, 18, Dior Rose, 17, Carlos, 7, and Jax, 8, as well as raising her own 4-year-old daughter, Savannah. .
It’s a big responsibility, carried by the weary weight of her voice as she describes what life has been like for the past five months.
Anna will move permanently into her mother’s home and live with her father until her siblings leave the nest, which may not last another 10 years.
Anna’s nana died the year before her daughter, and she has few other close relatives.
“Honestly, I want to dedicate my time to helping everyone get through this, and I feel like that’s my role as a big sister,” Anna says.
It’s 2012 and it’s a different entity.
Anna looks at the camera that her mother is taking snaps of and laughs. There’s a pool, bubbles, white arches in the garden, and Rachel smiles proudly at her then 13-year-old daughter.
While friends dance to a DJ at Anna’s birthday party, Rachelle is in the background talking to a young man who has just entered.
The DJ then introduced the man to a crowd of stunned teenage girls as then-R’n’B star J. Williams.
When he sings, they dance, shouting the lyrics back to him, and can’t believe what a dreamlike night Rachelle has made come true.
“Every birthday, every Christmas, she was truly magical,” Anna remembers sadly. “None of us knew how she was able to make her things such a dream. It was so extreme, and those are things we will never forget. It’s a memory I don’t have.”
she is right Rachelle has lots of kids birthday parties on her YouTube channel. Carlos’ girlfriend’s fifth birthday in 2010 was a fantasyland filled with a Ferris wheel, spinning teacups, amusement park attractions and a flamethrower.
Dior Rose recently celebrated her 17th birthday. Anna did everything she could to make herself feel as special as her mother, but she just fell short.
“I learn from her and try to do the same for my kids…but it will never be the same.”
To the public, Rachelle Chase was considered a fitness guru and model, beautiful, poised, and a social media influencer.
But that’s not the woman her children recognize or want you to know.
Although Anna is proud of her accomplishments and her self-made success, she says her mother’s family came first.
Rachelle has always stated in articles, TV appearances, and social media that being a mother is her most important role.
Anna knows that not being around her children is unacceptable for a mother.
“I think she would be shocked to have left her little ones out in the world without her because she really was her guide.”
By the time Rachelle reached her 40s, she had accomplished more in her lifetime than most people.
She studied early childhood education, computer technology, personal training, and worked in event management.
But it was in figure competitions that Rachelle really excelled.
In 2011, she became the first Kiwi woman to compete in Olympia, a professional bodybuilding competition held in Las Vegas.
At the time of her death, she had 1.4 million followers on Facebook and posted inspirational posts about staying healthy as a single mother.
In recent years, she worked as a fitness model and influencer offering online fitness instruction.
She graced the covers of many fitness magazines and became the epitome of clean living for the world to see.
That makes it difficult for Anna to understand how a healthy person with no underlying health conditions could die without any apparent cause.
“We don’t have an answer yet.”
The day Rachelle was found, Anna had her brother Jax stay at her house. That morning, Jax’s father picked him up and took him to Rachelle’s house. Police were outside when he arrived and he was not allowed inside.
Rachelle’s body was found by a friend who became worried because she didn’t answer her phone calls.
Back at Anna’s house, her own phone rang. It was her stepfather.
“And he said, well, mom’s gone…” She shook her head. “And I don’t actually remember how I reacted. All I remember is you screaming in pain and frantically doing the laundry. is.”
Police have not revealed what killed Rachelle in recent months, which is frustrating for Anna, who has had to protect her siblings from rumors about their mother. She hopes her coroner’s inquest will put an end to the rumors and give her mother the dignity she deserves.
What hurt most was the abuse she received on social media, including from people who didn’t know her family, when she announced her mother’s death a few weeks later.
“We were all pretty distraught…” says Anna. “When you see something so wrong, you want to defend that person.”
She has done everything she can to keep her siblings away from online bullying.
“What’s on the internet stays on the internet, and when young people grow up they’re going to see stuff like this. That’s why I thought we should protect them as much as we can. Because… Because God forbid they get this” bullying too. ”
It’s a quiet Monday afternoon in the Chase household, but it’ll soon get noisy when Anna’s siblings come home two hours later.
Adaptation is a word that both she and her father inherently know. As Anna and her daughter moved home, her youngest brother Jax left home to live with his father, and the family fell apart.
Anna is no longer working. Raising her siblings is a role she takes on full-time.
She hopes her mother would be proud of how her stoic daughter is helping her father and moving the family forward.
She hides her sadness and cries in secret. Rachelle will never attend her children’s weddings or meet her new grandchild.
For Anna, it will take time to adjust.
“There are certainly days when things are much more difficult.”
