by Paul Martin
Before I knew anything about that vile thief and her ensuing horror, Celina confirmed my one-night reservation and asked without lifting her head, “Here for business?”
“Yes, a legislative session at the capital. It’s tomorrow. It’s about the drug fentanyl.”
Later that night, after meeting Chase during dinner — Chase, who lost his brother to a vaping pen — I return to my hotel, and she’s still there.
We chat. She asks what I do. I tell her about United Against Fentanyl. An hour later, I’m still listening to her story.
There are three categories of these Monuments of Suffering. One, losing a child to a pill or vape pen that had been laced with fentanyl. Two, losing a child who had a substance use disorder and died from fentanyl. Or, three, trying to save a child addicted to fentanyl and feeling scared and hopeless, instead of grief.
Celina is in the third category.
“I have a child who struggles with fentanyl. I had him when I was 14.”
“His struggles with drugs started when he was 13. He got through his struggle. When he was about 18, 19, he got clean.”
“Twenty, he found out he was going to be a dad. Twenty-one he did become a dad.”
“Twenty-three, he started to struggle again and got caught back up in the life of the pills and everything that there was.”
“This time he didn’t come back. He just got deeper and deeper and deeper.”
“And every day I worry about him. I think about him a million times a day — if he’s eaten. If he’s drinking anything, where he’s sleeping, where he is, what he’s doing.”
“If he’s even okay.” (Cries.)
“I look for him on Thursdays — not every Thursday. Sometimes it too much to bear to go and see him the way he is.”
“And we want to help them so bad – I want to help him so bad – but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to save my son from himself.”
“There’s not a program I could put him in. There’s not a drug I could give him to help him.”
“There is nothing.”
“When people have sicknesses — which they have now diagnosed this as a sickness — there’s treatments that are given to the people who are sick: cancer, there’s chemo, aids, there’s other medicines.”
“But you want me to accept the fact that my son has a sickness and a disease that I cannot help him with. There’s nothing that I could do to help my child with. Nothing. I can’t put him in a place. I can’t make him stay somewhere. I can’t do anything to help him.”
“And yet this pandemic is everywhere in our youth. Almost every family that I know struggles with this.”
“Every, single, family, I know struggles with it.”
“We’ve all lost somebody to it. We all know somebody who’s living on the streets from it. We all carry it every day.”
“I’ve seen stuff on the internet where people are in front of the capital where they’re saying all of this, but I’m telling you right now…”
“Nobody cares. Nobody cares to help us save our children.”