For Brandi

It’s early Winter. The mountains above town are wrapped in thick fog. It’s too early in the morning for pedestrians and commerce, but a few homeless people are out, rummaging through the trash, collecting bottles and cans. One of them is absent from this scene. She died of a fatal overdose.

Her name was Brandi.

Brandi was a prominent member of the community. Born and raised here in the temperate rain-forest of the West Kootenays, she was a fixture of downtown Nelson. People who knew Brandi described her in terms such as charismatic, intelligent, beautiful, kind, generous, thoughtful, resourceful, and a whirlwind.

Many of the people I serve through my outreach work are so entrenched in addiction, trauma, and homelessness it’s hard for them to see beyond their individual survival.

This wasn’t the case for Brandi.

When she came to the office, she often looked in on staff, checking up on us. If we seemed stressed or sad she would do little things to make the day easier like sweeping the floor, or making one of us a coffee.

She was very caring in that way.

I met Brandi right after my mom passed away. We related on the ground shaking experience of losing our mothers. We talked often, sometimes about metaphysics, sometimes about health related topics like the proven link between schizophrenia and poor gut health. Brandi helped me put together vitamin packs to help support people on the street, giving her perspective on which combination of supplements would be most beneficial for people living rough.

In turn, I tried to help Brandi. Many of us did. But she didn’t make it easy. She always tried to muscle through her pain on her own. She also had a certain acceptance for what she was going through—not so much as downplaying it, but more like her struggles were hers and hers alone.

One time she disappeared for over a month and many people who knew her were worried. By chance I found Brandi in another town. She had been there for a while and was in bad shape. Her eyes were bloodshot from sleep deprivation; her skin was pale from being in doors for many days straight, and she had little cuts and scrapes all over her arms and legs. I offered to take her back to her community, but she declined the opportunity.

“I have some karma to work off in this town before coming back home,” she said. “But thank you for checking on me. Tell everyone I love them, and will be back soon.”

Many people had a particular love for Brandi. This fact was evident at the memorial held for her. The room was packed with a diverse array of community members, from street people, to service providers, as well as pastors and business owners.

It was obvious that she touched many.

Over the years I heard people speak about Brandi’s “potential.” Some said if she would only love herself more; if she would only see herself more clearly, she could have a healthy life and get off of the street. From my perspective, however, she did love herself and seemed more conscious of her actions than most.

The way she lived—often hunkering down under a tarp in the woods, scavenging clothes from free piles, eating at the soup kitchen, warming herself with fires made from pallets left in the alley—these were all aspects of what she called her “experience of the wild side of civilization.”

No doubt her decisions were influenced by the childhood trauma she underwent and the impact it had on her developing brain. Meth and fentanyl also exerted effects on her wellbeing. But still, there was something else going on with Brandi, the side of her that seemed acutely aware of what she was doing.

When I learned that Brandi overdosed it stung deeply. Another outreach worker broke the news to me.

“Brace yourself…” he said, before saying her name, knowing it was going to hurt. Her death hit hard for all of us who knew her.

Now, for the living, there is an absence in the space Brandi occupied. We are left to grapple with the issues of her death; issues around unresolved trauma, mental health struggles, the drugs people use to attenuate pain, and the homelessness all of this can spur.

We have to figure out how to better serve the people in our community who are struggling.

We need to re-evaluate and evolve our thinking around these issues. We need to come up with more effective solutions that help people heal from their trauma, and find ways of supporting them out of street entrenchment and substance abuse. With over 47,000 overdose deaths reported in Canada since 2016, clearly our current strategies are not working.

Instead of doubling down, its time to re-envision.

For Brandi, all of this is irrelevant. Her struggle is over. No more street life, no more black eyes, no more eating out of dumpsters, no more being chained to meth and fentanyl.

The spirit Brandi embodied is free now. And like the other wild creatures of the verdant Kootenay mountains that surround us, it moves through these forests liberated and entirely untamed.

Farewell Brandi. We saw you.