warning, a wish and a prayer 💔🙏

 

a warning, a wish and a prayer 💔🙏

Today, people are voting.

Today, I am praying I can get help to get to Mexico.

And today, I am still thinking about the man I found lying on the cold pavement the other day.

I keep asking myself the same questions.

Did I save him? Was it simply the timing? Was he already gone?

When I touched his cold, white skin on his neck, I remember thinking, saying aloud, Oh God, please don't be dead. 😬🥺💔

I don't know what happened to him after that. I don't know if he survived. I don't know if I arrived in time.

I only know that, in that moment, another human being needed help, and I couldn't just walk away.

And sometimes, the moments we witness stay with us long after we leave the scene.

They follow us home. 🧳🏡🏠🏚⛺️

They crawl into bed with us. 🛏

They sit with us over coffee. ☕️🍪🍺🫖?

We replay what happened, what we did, what we might have done differently. We wonder about the things we will never know.

I've been thinking more about Indigenous teachings, about connection, spirit, and the possibility of something greater than what we can explain. 

Perhaps my mind is trying to make sense of something frightening. Perhaps there are things I don't yet understand.

I don't have the answers. I have questions, feelings, memories, and a prayer.

And then I see another drug alert.

On October 21, Vancouver Coastal Health warned that powders sold as opioids or down in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside had tested positive for a substance that fentanyl test strips cannot detect.

A negative fentanyl test strip result does not mean a substance is safe.

Please be careful. Please look out for one another. If someone is unresponsive or breathing abnormally, call 911 immediately. Give naloxone if opioid poisoning is suspected, and follow the dispatcher's instructions.

But I also want us to look beyond the immediate emergency.

What happens when someone survives an overdose but has nowhere safe to sleep?

What happens when they are finally ready for treatment but cannot get a bed?

What happens when they complete treatment and return to homelessness, poverty, isolation, and the same circumstances that made recovery so difficult?

We cannot keep telling people to get help without making sure help is there when they reach for it.

We cannot keep losing people and pretend that this is simply the way things are.

my wish

I wish we could end this war on our children.

Our young people deserve a future. People struggling with addiction deserve a chance to recover. People living on the streets deserve safety, dignity, housing, and the opportunity to begin again.

We need detox, treatment, mental health care, harm reduction, supportive housing, and continuing support after treatment.

We need to stop treating poverty as a personal failure and start addressing the conditions that keep people trapped in it.

Poverty, greed, and the hoarding of wealth while others go without are symptoms of a society that has lost sight of what matters.

We have enough for everyone.

We have the knowledge, the resources, and the ability to do better. What we need is the willingness to put human lives ahead of endless accumulation and political point-scoring.

believe in better

Today, people are voting. 💚🍀🤗🌲🪄✨️🐬🌊💧😎

Think about the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Think about the people who are struggling right now, and the people who might still be here tomorrow if we gave them a genuine chance.

Vote according to your conscience. Look at the policies, the priorities, and the future each party is proposing. Consider the environment, housing, poverty, health care, and the lives of people who are too often forgotten.

I believe we need a future that puts people and the planet first. I believe in the possibility of doing things differently.

Believe in better.

my prayer 🙏

For the man on the pavement, wherever he is tonight. ❤️

For everyone who is cold, 🥶frightened,🥺 hungry, or struggling to survive.

For those who are ready for recovery, may a door open when they knock.

For those who have lost someone, may they find comfort.

For those who work on the front lines, may they have the resources to keep helping.

For our children, may we leave them a kinder, safer world.

And for all of us, may we find the courage to care, the wisdom to act, and the compassion to remember that every life matters.

I hope someone can help me get to Mexico. I hope I can find some peace, paint, and breathe for a while.

But I don't want to have to look away from suffering to find peace.

I want to live in a world where fewer people are dying on our streets, where recovery comes with a real chance at a new life, and where nobody is considered disposable.

I don't know if I saved that man.

I pray I did.

I don't know why I was there at that moment.

I only know that I was, and that I cared.

Sometimes, all we can do is show up, reach out, and pray that we arrived in time.

May we learn to save lives before we have to mourn them.

Believe in better. 💚🌲🤗😉🐋🐳🤞