Loving, caring, outgoing and big-hearted
Bailey Rae-Lynn Cooper loved life. With big blue eyes and a huge heart of gold, she grew up a daddy’s girl. She loved to be outdoors, going hunting and fishing, and searching for arrowheads when she got older. Bailey loved animals and had many pets growing up, giving them all names that started with a B, like Bubba Kitty and Ben for a pot-bellied pig.
She was five when her twin sisters, Brooklyn, and Brittany, were born and Bailey took her big sister duties seriously. She kept one sister entertained while the other one was getting fed or changed. Once when the kitchen smoke alarm went off, Bailey grabbed her sisters’ hands and marched them outside to the designated area, making sure they were safe.
Bailey was smart, outgoing, and loved by many. She loved her family and being with her best friend, Tristan Johnson, whom she’d known since kindergarten. If she had something to say, she’d make sure her voice was heard. Bailey got a phlebotomy license from vocational school after high school, but didn’t pursue using it because she became pregnant with her first child, Claire. Her son, Declan, was born while Bailey was in treatment. She loved being with her kids and being a mom.
Bailey was 14 when she had her first back surgery and started taking pain pills. Doctors thought her back issues were because of being bucked off a horse when she was young and from powerlifting in high school. By age 17, she had a fifth surgery, this time to insert a metal rod in her back. But the pain never went away, and she began abusing the pain medication, eventually moving from oxycodone to heroin and methamphetamines.
“It changed her,” her mother, Stacy, said. “She wasn’t herself. She always was trying to find things to sell to get her more drugs.”
It was hard on her family not knowing when the call or knock on the door was coming. Following her second arrest, Bailey stayed in jail and then went to treatment. After nine months, she was released. She was home five days before overdosing. Her sister, Brooklyn, is raising her children. Her family wonders what else they could have done.
“I see her in the babies every day, as they get older, especially,” her mother said. “Claire looks just like her. And Declan… he’ll sit there, and he’ll jabber and it’s like, ‘Y’all let me talk and y’all be quiet.’ That’s so much Bailey.”
“Bailey was my firstborn, my life, my everything. She had a big heart. She had a lot of love.”
Bailey’s mother, Stacy Barnett, provided the information for this narrative.
July 10, 1997-June 15, 2023-Age 25
Portrait Artist: Jason Irwin
Narrative Writer: Lynne Mixson
