Dog The Bounty Hunter daughter Cecily recalls mom Beth’s dying days and tells how she survived ‘worst year of her life’
DOG The Bounty Hunter's daughter Cecily has spoken for the first time about her mom Beth's tragic final days and revealed her desperate struggle to come to terms with her death.
In a poignant interview to mark the upcoming one year anniversary of , Cecily, 26, admitted that some days she could barely get out of bed or leave the house as she struggled with the grief of losing her beloved mother.
But after getting through what she described as the "worst year of my life," Cecily told how she's slowly getting used to life without her mom.
Sharing some tender never-seen-before family pictures of her mom, she said she is now dedicated to keeping Beth's "legacy alive" through the launch of a and by interacting with Beth's army of fans across the world.
Beth died on June 26th 2019 after , aged 51, leaving husband , 12 children and 11 grandchildren - as well as fans - .
Cecily, who says she's only just felt able to talk about the , told how she had no idea that when her mom , she would never come home again.
"I can't even believe it's the first year. I still feel like I was in the hospital yesterday. It's a rough feeling," she told The Sun.
"And honestly, those five days in the hospital were probably the worst days of my whole entire life. It was like going to a hospital to have a baby and then you left without your baby.
"When it first happened, I just thought maybe she was just having difficult breathing.
"You don't think about the worst case scenario. I never would have thought that that was the last time I would speak to her that morning.
"I just remember myself crying to her that morning saying 'I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to make it better'.
"I couldn't cook her anything. I couldn't make her anything. And she basically just told me 'You've got to live without your mommy'.
"It was a very traumatic day but you automatically think, 'Oh, we'll take her to the hospital and fix it. She'll be okay'.
"My sister Lyssa had got to the house, the fire people and ambulance and everyone was there. I went into her room, I grabbed her phone, her wallet, clothes... everything I could grab for her.
"This whole time I'm thinking she's going to leave the hospital. And so when I got there [to the hospital] and I realized the severity of it, it was a game changer.
"And it went from, 'She's going to be fine, we'll get through this'... then it ended up being like, 'This is unfixable and basically what do you want to do about it?'
"My whole world got flipped upside down and it was something that I was not prepared for."
Cecily said one of the hardest parts was having to call her siblings and Beth's friends to tell them to rush to the hospital to .
She spent the next few days at , talking to her and playing her favorite songs - even though Beth was unable to talk.
The family then made the difficult decision to leave the hospital - at the hospital staff's request - so
"We had been waiting for the phone call and I got the phone call and I had to go wake up my dad [and tell him Beth passed]," she said.
"It was very traumatizing. I felt guilty that I wasn't with her, but we stayed as long as we could possibly stay and after a while the staff were asking us to 'please leave'.
"They didn't want us there because I felt like she was sticking around because we were there... I feel like us being there was preventing her from going.
"She finally went at 5:32AM in the morning. She hiked up the Koko Head stairs for the last time."
And while Cecily was not with her mom when she took her final breath - she said she remembers the touching last words she said to her.
"I told her that I loved her and that if I ever have a daughter, I want to name her Alice," Cecily said.
"That was like her family name, everybody called her Beth, but to her loved ones, we all secretly called her Alice.
"It was just her special name that not many people knew about."
Cecily plans to mark her mom's one year anniversary by doing her favorite hike in Hawaii and then organizing a so friends and family can "honor" her mom.
"I want to do a paddle out during her favorite time, sunset hour, and then before that in the morning I plan on doing a hike and laying flowers in some of her favorite spots," Cecily said.
"I'm going to divide up her friends and her family... so hopefully Lyssa will do her own special hike and then I'll do a special hike.
"It will be a feeling like she's everywhere that day. And then I want to end it out with a paddle in Waimanalo, just get a good group of people to come and join forces and make her feel honored on that day."
Cecily says she hopes the one year anniversary will bring some peace - and finally mark the end of a difficult year.
She said the year had been full of emotional milestones and holidays that she has had to face alone for the first time.
"Hopefully this will be the last day where I'll feel like it's the first of something different," she said.
"Change has been a big factor in this year for me. I never thought in a million years, my whole 26th year would be my worst year of my life - just due to not being with her.
"You know, there's always questions that I wish I had asked before just things about life, taxes, all kinds of things.
"It has definitely been a learning experience and I feel I've had to grow up fast."
Cecily, who is Dog's adopted daughter, says her mom's death sent her into a depression - so bad that sometimes she had no motivation to do anything.
She says she wants to talk about her struggles with grief to help others who have lost a loved one or who are suffering from mental health problems.
"Because we had the funeral in July in Colorado, it kind of gave me the excuse to get out of bed but then when I got home there was maybe a month where I didn't want to leave the house, I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to do anything," Cecily said.
"I didn't feel motivated for anything. And then it came time for me to have to move out of the Hawaii house and that definitely prolonged the time it took until I got back on my feet.
"When I started the For Beth line, I got that kick of motivation again, it gave me a purpose.
"It got me back up and going again but then Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were very difficult for me because those are some of her favorite holidays...
"I couldn't even handle having a Christmas without her...I'm not going to lie. Christmas was probably my roughest."
She said one of the hardest emotions to deal with was loneliness as she had spent so much time living and working with her mom.
"I tried to keep myself busy constantly with meet and greets and other things. I couldn't be alone," she said.
"My fiance is a plumber, so he works every day. And now that my dad moved to Colorado, I'm pretty much solo every day.
"And so I feel like that took a big toll on me as well, just constantly being alone. It was a constant reminder of being alone and it sucked. It really did.
"It took me a lot to kind of grow out of that. It was depression, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It was definitely a depression phase.
"I feel like for a minute there I just didn't really care about anything.
"But it started picking up in January, I felt like I was getting a lot better and I was starting to succeed. I felt better about life every day and I was able to wake up and get ready and go through my jobs.
"And then of course COVID-19 came and it was back to being forced to stay inside all the time. And then there was Mother's Day and I just felt this anxiety. To be honest, I probably slept halfway through Mother's Day. I just didn't want to face the day."
For now Cecily says she learnt to take things one day at a time and is hopeful for the future.
She says she's determined to carry on Beth's work helping those in need or going through tough times.
And she'd love to do a TV show again if the chance ever arises.
"My mom was very strong, very empowering - she's an inspiration to a lot of women," Cecily said.
"And doing the For Beth line has blown my mind just to see how many people admired her and loved her and looked up to her.
"And it was such an honor for me to not only gain fans but gain her fans.
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"She took care of me my whole life and I just want everybody to have a little piece of her.
She added: "And of course I love bounty hunting and I miss being with my dad and the team so if we ever did TV again I would absolutely love to be a part of that.
"I don't ever regret doing the show."