I speak with mothers all week long. Misty and Lisa and April and Gretchin and Cynthia and Courtney and Kelly and I could go on and on and on.
They are specific kinds of mothers. They suffered the most devastating type of emotional pain—the loss of their child, their child who was far too young to die.
These conversations started in September 2023, on the phone with Andrea, who lost her daughter, Amanda, to fentanyl. I wrote about Andrea’s story here. She told me about an event in DC, a gathering called Lost Voices of Fentanyl. Days later, I stood on a field in the pouring rain from tropical storm Ophelia at the Washington Monument. I stood with hundreds like Andrea. The majority, mothers.
They all held photos of their deceased children.
I tried to take in the collective grief I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears. In a daze, I walked and thought of my mother, who had passed in 2021. My mother who was my best friend. My mother whose love was purely unconditional. My mother who devoted much of her life to caring for orphans in Mexico.
(This photo was from my 21st birthday. Just look at how proud she is.)
On that day on that field in the rain in our nation’s capital, United Against Fentanyl was born.
We launched UAF in March of last year and immediately received inquiries from our website. Virtually all of them were moms wanting to volunteer—dozens and dozens of them. They said they needed to turn their pain into purpose, mainly the purpose of alerting other parents that it can happen to their children.
We announced Walk for Lives in November, and approximately 200 said “yes” to organizing a walk in their community on September 20. More join each week. The response has been overwhelming.
At least a couple of times a year, I read J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. The first words he writes are “To My Mother.” I could say so much about this book, which has inspired me for many years and for many reasons. Holden Caulfield, a troubled teen, describes his ultimate job after his 12-year-old sister, Phoebe, asks, “Name something you’d like to be. Like a scientist. Or a lawyer or something.” Holden later responds:
“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around —nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they are to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.
The only thing I’d like to be is a man who, on behalf of my mother, and all mothers, catches children from falling off the cliff called fentanyl.
In the past year, I’ve come to know leading experts on the fentanyl crisis, including those in public policy, law enforcement, and national security. I meet and strategize with them and create the Thought Leader Seriespodcasts: Vanda Felbab Brown of the Brookings Institution, Ray Donovan, Former Chief of Operations for the DEA, Regina LaBelle, former Head of Drug Policy for two U.S. Presidents, and Ioan Grillo, one of the world’s experts on the Mexican cartels.
Though these men and women know everything about fentanyl, nobody can know as much as these mothers I speak with.
When they ask, “Why do you do this, Paul?” I always answer…
To my mother, and for the mothers.
Happy Mother’s Day,
