In the days before his death in April, Steven Tayes and his sister Taryn Tayes planted flowers in their greenhouse.
"The day before my brother passed away we had a good day," said Taryn. "We went for a hike with the dogs, and we are big gardeners so we had a greenhouse ... and that day he planted some sunflowers and other flowers."
Those sunflowers have since grown and bloomed, and some of the blossoms were attached to Steven's photo on display at International Overdose Awareness Day at Cottonwood Falls Park in Nelson on Aug. 30.
Taryn said she has worked as an advocate on the front lines of harm reduction and safe supply for many years, and is now a social work student. She said she has known dozens of people who have died of drug poisoning.
"But the pain of losing my own brother – I have never felt pain like this before in my life."
She said International Overdose Awareness Day has new meaning for her now.
"I understand more deeply how this epidemic is destroying people's families and friends and loved ones."
She said she intends to keep advocating for a treatment centre in the West Kootenay.
The purpose of the event at Cottonwood Park was to remember and honour people who have died of overdoses. There were informational displays, memorials, and a circle where participants spoke and sang.
Darlene Brady was there with a photo of her daughter Jenna-Lynn Brady, who died three years ago after using drugs tainted with fentanyl.
"It is a hard thing to go through," she said, "when someone overdoses, especially when something was in their drugs that should not have been there and they didn't know it was in there.
"I was on the street myself and am 14 years clean. I got treated by the general public very differently when I was on the street, than I did when I was a married mom. I want people to see her picture here and know that she was not a street person, and street people are not bad people. Addiction has no prejudice. It takes anybody down ... You are not safe from this just because you are in good standing in the community. This can touch your life."
Brady said she is starting Healing Hearts in Castlegar, a bereavement support group offered by Moms Stop the Harm, a national organization of people impacted by substance-use-related harms and deaths.
Cheryl Dowden, executive director of ANKORS, one of the organizers of the event, told the gathering that in the Second World War, 45,400 Canadian soldiers and civilians were killed. Since the opiod crisis was declared in 2016, 42,000 Canadians have died of opiod poisoning as of June 1.
"COVID proved to us that we could get on a pandemic and stop it," she said. "But we have been going on with this for years and it has not been getting any better."
She said many types of interventions are needed, all of them equally urgent, including enhanced services in harm reduction, safe supply, opioid agonist therapy, and complex care housing. She said overdose prevention sites are needed in every community.
"I am talking from a rural perspective here because often the commitments go to the larger urban centres and we have to wait five year, 10 years, two decades."
