Hundreds mourn Takeimi Rao at funeral

<p>Hundreds of mourners filled a Santa Rosa church Friday to honor a girl whose untimely death sparked community-wide reflection on underage alcohol use.</p><p>A large portrait of a smiling Takeimi Rao graced the entry of St. Eugene's Cathedral where friends and family of the 14-year-old entered Friday to gentle stringed-instrument music.</p><p>A woman near the altar sang a song. A line, “It's hard to understand,” hung in the air.</p><p>Rao, who had recently graduated eighth grade from Rincon Valley Middle School, died last Sunday after she apparently consumed vodka with friends during a sleepover at her parent's house.</p><p>The tragic details were never directly mentioned during Friday's hour-long service, which instead focused on universal questions about unexpected loss and unanswerable grief. </p><p>The priest who led the service, Fergal McGuiness, quoted from the hymn “Gather Us In” — “We are the young, our lives are a mystery” — and used the story of boy wizard Harry Potter to explore Rao's abbreviated life and sudden death.</p><p>“In the face of the mystery of human life . . . we must journey forward,” McGuiness said. </p><p>He added: “Takeimi was like Harry Potter, she had the restless heart of an adventurer.”</p><p>Family friend John Caster told mourners that he came to know Rao through his daughter, Emma, and that his first interest in Takeimi was the uniqueness of her name.</p><p>“Throughout the years you were always the girl who was smaller than everyone else, more shy than everyone else, but without a doubt one of the sweetest people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing,” he said.</p><p>He added: “It was always clear to me that this was who I wanted my daughters with.”</p><p>Rao's mother, Aleae Pennette, and stepfather, Scott Moyer, sat in the first row. The couple, who've not spoken publicly of Rao's death, greeted people with hugs.</p><p>Caster said the family in turn has benefitted this week from an outpouring of support from the community. Rao's death brought out a wave of concern over teen alcohol use, and how best to broach the subject to try and prevent future tragedies from happening.</p><p>At least 100 students and their parents gathered earlier in the week at Rincon Valley with school staff and counselors to mourn Rao's sudden death.</p><p>Meghan Milligan, one of dozens of Rao's classmates who attended Friday's funeral, said discussions about drugs and alcohol are commonplace at the school.</p><p>“We talk about it (drugs and alcohol) a lot,” Milligan said. “To know that a classmate actually died from it is really hard to take in.”</p><p>Another classmate, Kylee Potts, said Rao's death was such a shock to everyone because nobody suspected she would ever consume alcohol.</p><p>“It's not like her at all,” Potts said.</p><p>Three friends were with Rao Saturday night at a sleepover in her north Santa Rosa home when they sneaked vodka from a kitchen cabinet and drank the liquor mixed with soda. All four became ill and threw up during the night. Rao was found dead on her bedroom floor.</p><p>Authorities are awaiting toxicology results to determine the amount of alcohol ingested by the teen and the role it may have played in her death.</p>