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HE WASN’T BUYING COFFEE. HE WAS BUYING THE SOUND OF HER NAME. Yesterday, I read a story about a young man who had lost his girlfriend, Angela. Every day, he went to Starbucks and ordered a drink using her name. The barista would write her name on the cup, place it on the counter and, when the drink was ready, call her name aloud. He did not go because he needed the coffee. He went because, for one brief moment, someone said her name. For one second, her name existed outside h

MCKAYLA LIVED ON BOTH SIDES OF ADDICTION One day, McKayla told me something that has never left my heart. She had spent years loving a man who was also living with addiction. She had waited for him, worried about him, and watched drugs slowly change the person she loved. She knew the confusion of hearing one thing and witnessing another. She knew how quickly hope could turn into fear. She knew what it was like to look at someone standing directly in front of her and still fee

IN McKAYLA’S OWN HANDWRITING The night before McKayla was supposed to go to rehab, she cleaned her room to perfection. Everything was in its place. Her suitcase was packed with everything she thought she would need for the new life she was preparing to begin, including her favourite stuffy. She was ready. Or at least, she wanted so desperately to be ready. Before she left, she placed a little envelope on her bed. I honestly don't know why, but she left it right there for me t

For some reason, this story has been weighing heavily on my heart today. When McKayla first left to live on the streets in 2023, it became a nightmare for our entire family. Months passed without any contact. There is no way to explain the terror of not knowing whether someone you love is alive. You lie awake wondering if they are cold, hungry, frightened, or hurt. Every time the phone rings, your heart stops. Every face in a crowd makes you look twice. You search, you wait,

“I can get thru this 5 days! I have too. I deserve better life. I will be so great at life. I’m over failing at life and being nothing to nobody. A JUNKIE!!” There is so much written on this little piece of paper. There is determination. There is hope. There is a young woman trying with everything inside her to believe that five days could become the doorway to a different life. But hidden inside those words is something else. Fear. McKayla needed to remain in detox for five

Today, I looked at McKayla’s passport and realized it was so much more than a piece of identification. A passport is a promise to yourself. It says there are places you still want to see, journeys you still plan to take, and a future you believe you will be alive to experience. McKayla had a passport because she had dreams beyond addiction. Somewhere inside her, there was still a young woman who imagined packing a suitcase, boarding a plane and discovering parts of the world

​ There is grief, and then there is the grief that comes after an overdose. ​ It carries all the heartbreak of losing someone you love, but it can also carry something else: stigma, shame, blame and a silence that makes an already unbearable loss feel even lonelier. ​ Sometimes people search for reasons instead of asking about the person you lost. Their questions can sound like judgment. Their silence can feel as though they blame your loved one for their own death, or believ

Today, I was given McKayla’s death certificate. A piece of paper confirming that my beautiful granddaughter lived, and that her life is over. I looked at it and thought about how many certificates and pieces of paper we collect throughout a lifetime. They record our beginnings. Our accomplishments. Our independence. Our love. Our families. Our future. McKayla's life began with a birth certificate. Then came the little certificates, the ones that may not seem important until y

Some parents believe children are too young to learn about drugs. They believe avoiding the conversation is protecting them. It isn’t. Silence does not stop children from seeing a vape that smells sweet, a gummy that looks like candy or a pill offered by someone they trust. Silence only means they may face that moment without knowing the truth. The world our children are growing up in is not the world we grew up in. Drugs are changing rapidly, and they are reaching children a

SCARE THEM WITH THE TRUTH— BEFORE DRUGS BECOME THEIR REALITY. Some people will not agree with what I am about to say. That is okay. Parents, scare your children with the truth about drugs. Tell them what addiction really looks like. Tell them that the first pill may not look dangerous. Tell them that the first person offering it may call themselves a friend. Tell them that drugs can lie to their brain, take control of their body and make stopping feel impossible. Tell them ab

McKayla and I were supposed to write a book together. I never imagined I would have to write it without her. This page began long before McKayla left this earth. It began in the conversations we had, the battles we fought, the lessons she taught me and the stories she believed the world needed to hear. When I wrote something that touched McKayla, she shared it with her friends. Many of those friends were living lives most people looked away from. They were struggling with hom

THE CALL When you love someone living in addiction, you are always waiting for the call. Every time the phone rings, your heart stops, especially when you do not recognize the number, or it rings late at night. You look at the screen and wonder: Is this it? Is this the call I have been terrified of? You dread it. You pray it will never come. But somewhere inside, you know it might. I think part of me believed that living with that fear was somehow preparing me. That if the ca

DEAR MOM AND DAD, Let me introduce myself. I am the drug dealer looking for your child. You probably won’t see me standing outside their school. I rarely do my own dirty work. I use other young people, sometimes children your child already knows and trusts, to carry my drugs, deliver my messages and introduce me to my next customer. And yes, I am around elementary schools and high schools alike. Age does not matter to me. I am searching for your child. You think I am looking

DRUGS STOLE OUR FAMILY PHOTO We will never take another complete family photograph. We can gather everyone together. We can dress for the occasion. We can stand close, put our arms around one another and smile when someone says, “Look at the camera.” But the photograph will never be complete. There will always be someone missing. There will always be an empty space where McKayla should be. At every birthday. Every Christmas. Every wedding. Every new baby. Every ordinary Sunda

Your funeral does not begin when your heart stops. It begins the first time drugs take something from you, and you let them stay long enough to take something else. First, they take the small things. A trophy covered in dust. A report card you no longer care about. A practice you stop attending. A dream you promise yourself you will return to someday. Then they take your friends. Not all at once. The friends who remember who you were try to reach you. They question you. They

TODAY, I AM ANGRY This morning, I got out of bed, and one of the first things I saw was the beautiful urn holding McKayla’s ashes. I looked at that tiny box and broke. I touched it. I cried. And then I wanted to scream until there was no breath left inside me. Because everything my granddaughter was is now inside that urn. Drugs! Fucking powder turned my granddaughter into ashes. How is that even possible? How can something so small destroy something so beautiful? Those eyes