Unsilencing Stories

Episode 20: Marianne Ryan in Cranbrook, B.C. Remembers her Friend Jarred

March 25, 2023 Unsilencing Stories
Unsilencing Stories
Episode 20: Marianne Ryan in Cranbrook, B.C. Remembers her Friend Jarred
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, you will hear Jerome Desmarchais-Vogt speaking with Marianne Ryan in Cranbrook B.C. about her friend Jarred who both died from an opioid overdose.  

Jenna Keeble 00:00

Unsilencing Stories is a podcast that reflects the voices of people in small towns and communities in Canada, who have lost loved ones to the toxic drug supply crisis. Since 2016, more than 30,000 people have died from fatal overdoses in Canada and that number continues to climb. The risk in smaller towns and communities is much higher than urban areas because of a lack of harm reduction services, and stigma against substance use and people who use drugs. This podcast is part of a community based participatory research project facilitated by Aaron Goodman, Ph.D., a faculty member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C., along with students Jenna Keeble and Ashley Pocrnich. 

The aim was to assist collaborators in publicly memorializing their loved ones and expressing grief as well as challenging silences imposed by dominant media organizations and stigma from society against substance use and people who use drugs. We hope these nuanced stories make it clear why the government needs to be doing more to prevent further deaths. Please note this podcast contains information about overdose death, grief and trauma that may be distressing to listen to. In this episode, you'll hear Jerome Desmarchais-Vogt speaking with Marianne Ryan in Cranbrook, B.C. Marianne remembers her friend Jarred who died from an opioid overdose.

 

Marianne 01:15

Hi, my name is Marianne Ryan. I live in Kimberly, B.C. I have a few friends that have recently died, and I want to acknowledge, especially the most recent one I lost is Brendan, Brendan Bauer, who was a close friend of mine. I didn't know him very intimately. I didn't have very intimate talks with him, but I've known him for a long time, and I know he was a fighter. He struggled for a very long time before he lost his life and I wanted to acknowledge that. However, I have had a bit of a closer experience with Jarred and I think I have some good insights into his life that I would be able to share. Jarred, I believe he's 31-years-old. 

 

Jerome 02:05

He was very young, I know he was, yeah, he couldn't have been much older than me so, probably about that age.

 

Marianne 02:12

He lived on the streets in Cranbrook. The first time I remember seeing him, I remember he was, we were outside looking like this, saw him at the shelter when I was living there at the time, staying at the shelter and I saw that he was a bit temperamental, and that people had a hard time getting along with him. They were giving out free pizzas and I think it was Domino's. And they will give you these little chips and we would go; we get free individual pizza. And so, we were hanging out there and he had a Care Bears backpack, and he was kind of picking fights. 

 

I was the only female there so I kind of had to stand in between and be like, "Hey, man, let's chill out". I remembered he just looked; it wasn’t, it wasn't an evil look. It was just an intense look like who are you? I'm not here to get into a fight with you. And I remember feeling like this big win with that look that he had. And needless to say, he just he was like, okay, but it was definitely a moment where I was like, whoa, maybe you were more intense than I expected you to be. 

 

Jerome 03:40

Is that your best memory of him?

 

Marianne 03:43

Oh, no, no, I have some really good ones. When I left the Travelodge, they had kicked me out for whatever reason, and I was camping in a tent right outside of Street Angels. I was the first one to kind of set up a tent there in the summer and so several people followed. But Jared was the only one, consistent one, that stayed for a long time. I was kind of happy he was there because he provided me with some sort of protection. Single female staying there on my own, in the middle of the night, you just don't know who's going to try and get into your tent, right. He had come over once and we were right beside the skate park. So, the teenagers would often bug him about what he believed right, he was very vocal about being Jesus and that the world is ending and that we were all clones. 

We were all clones of his mother, he used to say, “You’re all clones of my mother” and we were all dead except for him, and he was the only one that was alive. And so, these kids would kind of bug him for it and one time I had heard them really calling him out and I went over, and I said, “You know you guys got to quit this, like everybody is allowed to have their own beliefs and their own opinions. We don't have to cut them down to make it heard, you can just say what you believe and walk away”. And they listened, I was pretty happy about that. 

After that, he started coming to my tent and he would ask me for cigarettes and stuff like that. And he'd sit there and just share some stories with me. And, you know, I really, I felt that he had been shut down so many times that he just needed someone to believe him, to truly and not just say it, but to feel it. I wanted to feel it inside. I wanted to feel inside that I believed him. And so, when he told me he was Jesus, I would look him straight in the eye, I believe what you're saying, and I felt it, too. Like, there's so much that happens in this world that we don't know. So, you know, who's to say that he's not who he says he is. 

 

Jerome 06:09

What did he mean to you? 

 

Marianne 06:12

Well, we kind of created a friendship based on him just coming over and having smokes with me. He kind of became like a bit of a big brother, I'd say it he was the protector. He would help me if somebody was after doing something to me, that was unkind, he would step up and stick up for me.

 

Jerome 06:34

Are you comfortable to talk about his death and how he died?

 

Marianne 06:39

I wasn't around, I had kind of started to distance myself and just started to clean up after a while. I found out about his deaths through a worker at Street Angels who had just said it very blatantly, and just said, “Oh yeah, he's dead. He's 30. No, he's on life support, so, he's pretty much dead”. It was actually a really hard way to hear it. I found it to be really insensitive. I know they didn’t mean anything by it, but I just had found this special kind of love for him. Just from the time that we had spent together that it just felt so, not inhumane, but it just didn't feel like there was a face. Like he didn't have a face. They were talking about a body and to me, I was like, no, this guy has a face, this guy has a name, this guy has a heart, he has feelings. I don't know a lot about what happened. I know that he was struggling. I know he was in a lot of pain. And so, I can see why he resorts to pain killers, which fentanyl inevitably is.

 

Jerome 07:55

What would you ask him if he was here today?

 

Marianne 07:59

That's a bit of a loaded question. But if he came back today, I asked him what heaven was like. And I'd asked him if he viewed the world differently today. If we still were all clones of his mother. I'd ask him a lot of different questions like that.

 

Jerome 08:18

What was the hardest thing about losing him?

 

Marianne 08:22

He had stood up for me one night, I had put myself in a not-so-great position where I had invited someone to my house because she was sleeping outside. She ended up having a boyfriend and some friends who kind of wanted to invite themselves and I said, “I'm sorry, I just can't do that”. They didn't like that, and he stood up for me and he let me get away. I was going to get robbed. I was going to get hurt eventually if I didn't leave that situation. He stood up for me and he ended up hiding in a bush. I ended up seeing him hiding in a bush later. And he had nothing to do with that. He did that all for me. And I never got a chance to say thank you.

 

Jerome 09:06

How do you think he would want to be remembered as Jesus as the savior of the women of this town?

 

Marianne 09:16

I think ultimately, he loved that part of himself. However, I tried to help him remember who Jarred was. And he would tell me, you know, he would say his dad, his dad was his name was Dennis I won't say his last name, but he said Dennis is devastated and disappointed with Jarred. He would talk in third person like that a lot. Dennis is devastated with Jarred that Dennis is sad. Dennis feels like he failed as a father. And he would say those things a lot. And it was the little bit of insight that I had on Jarred. I heard a lot about Jesus. But I got a little bit of insight on Jarred and his life. And I know that he really struggled with a lot of internal pain. I think part of that is the mom side of me that wanted him to take care of that little boy within him who was named Jarred because, you know, this, the whole Jesus thing didn't come and so no matter what, I just didn't want him to forget about that little boy within him. That was Jared. And that was a genuinely sweet guy.

 

Jerome 10:36

Can you talk about the biggest obstacles he overcame in his life? 

 

Marianne 10:44

He was a drinker. And he, he went through a lot, his alcoholism was off the charts. It was insane how much he was consuming per day. And the pain that comes with alcoholism is excruciating. I mean, the withdrawals, just the internal dialogue that he had going on inside, I believe what was really, really hard for him. He had a lot of voices, mental illness that he had to push himself through. I know that every morning he woke up and had to go and bathe himself because he would have terrible nightmares that would result in his sleeping bags getting wet. I know from experience with having kids, that when the kids were wetting the bed, there was something off if something was going different in their world that wasn't fitting quite right. So, as an adult having to struggle with that, I can imagine that he must have had some really deep, severe internal ones that he was trying to tend to and wasn't able to have the tools to handle it properly.

 

Jerome 11:58

Was there anything you disagreed about or fought over, had some conflict around?

 

Marianne 12:05

I tried not to argue with him because he was very, very firm in his beliefs. And like I said, I felt like he just needed someone to just believe him. Just believe what He said and not question him. And I think that helped.

 

Jerome 12:21

Did you ever question?

 

Marianne 12:23

I think I questioned him to his benefit. I questioned him so that he could tell me more.

 

Jerome 12:30

What about him makes you smile.

 

Marianne 12:33

My favorite memory of him, he had a phone, I didn't have a phone at the time, and he had a phone. He wanted to show me his music that he listened to, and I wanted to show him, I have this band called Blue October that I absolutely love, and the lyrics are just incredible. So, he showed me this song and his songs more of a rap and he's telling you about his other life that he lived in and then we put on this other one, which is kind of like a love song. And I remember he was going like this; he was kind of dancing and I'm listening to this song, like just bopping, he came, and he started just kind of like petting me, like this. And he's still dancing, petting me. And he just looked into my eyes, like, this is a moment, you know, like we were just connecting as two people who love music and who found a common understanding. 

 

Like together, I just came to his level, you know, I came to his level I didn't, I didn't want to be someone different to him. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be on the same level. And when we were there, it was just like, it was like being on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. And perfect waves, you know, like every wave was just smooth. And it just made me smile so big that day. I remember at the end of it, I was in tears just because it was so to see him that you see him angry so often out in the world. So, to see him smiling with this soft spirit of his was really, really endearing. It was really nice to see.

 

Jerome 14:15

What did he look like?

 

Marianne 14:16

You're right, he looks like Jesus. I think there's more to just physical outward, what you see on the outside. I used to tell him there's a few things that I used to say, he had a very strong spirit. He would tell me that you know, it's really hard being rejected everywhere that you go, because he would go into a place, and he gets kicked out immediately because he had some issues with anger. He was socially awkward, but he was also very, I'm not very good with the words but very firm in what he believed to be true. He wasn't willing to get into other people's boundaries, other people's standards of what they expect, he just wasn't willing to hear it. He just said, “I'm going to be me”. And that's fine, I admired that it lifted him. However, it didn't make it easy for him. 

 

And so, I used to tell him, you know, instead of thinking that everybody cringes when they see, think of it this way you say, when you walk into a building, people feel your energy, and it is so strong, so big, and they're not as strong as you. I said, you know that these people are much smaller. And so, when you come in, it's not that they're repelled with disgust, but your strength, just like God, right? They say you can't visually see God because he's just all powerful. And so, I gave him the split where it was like a magnet. You know when two magnets, when you turn magnets around, trying to put them together, they repel out. And so, I said, “That's what your strength is like, everybody sees it and they're like, wow, that's too big. That's too big. I can’t take it”. And he seemed to like that, too. He also had one, well, actually, I think he had two lazy eyes. So, he used to say that he was on Pluto. So, I said, “Well, if that's the case, then why I must be on Pluto must be on Earth”. And he was like, “Yeah, I finally have an explanation”.

 

Jerome 16:20

What were his hopes and dreams for the future.

 

Marianne 16:24

I think he really wanted people to believe him. I think he really wanted people to see the devastation on Earth. He knew a lot more than life than we ever gave him credit for. It's funny how just, it's going with a kid who's playing make believe. You'd be surprised how much truth a child can bring out in a make-believe story that applies to our world today, and how much we can learn from it. And, you know, I believed in him just to make him feel better. But then the more I heard him, the more I believed him, and this wasn't because I was in psychosis it's because I left my heart open to the possibility of it being real. And just simply by doing that, I was able to see a clearer view of truth where some people would just say, no, I don't want to just be opening myself up to that.

 

Jerome 17:27

It's believable to be Jesus when you when you know the story of Jesus and where the world is at today. He felt we were in a rapture, and he was the Savior. Yeah, he was the All Knowing. Is there something about him that you think no one else knows? Or how are you different now than you were before you asked him?

 

Marianne 17:55

I think that moment that I had with him, when he just sat with me, I felt like I got something nobody else would have got to see very often.

 

Jerome 18:08

I've never seen him be soft at all. So yeah, probably right.

 

Marianne 18:15

I think we created a bit of like a sister brother type relationship that I felt was unique. Definitely like what I was saying about just believing, keeping my heart open. When you see somebody who deals with mental illness, it is so easy to just shut down the things that they say as being gibberish as being total nonsense. However, the universe, God, whoever you, whatever it is that you believe in, I believe there is a way that those things can be interpreted into something that resonates real for you. And I think it just goes to show that, you know, turning your back on anybody. You're cheating yourself out of truth that could be given through something that you may not have ever realized would be possible. But I call mental illness, mental illness, and I call it mental freedom, because I believe that mental illness opens another world of knowledge that we don't see in our sane, sane lives. And although it may not make sense to you in the moment, when you open yourself up to the possibilities and you hear them out, it’s incredible what you can take out of it.

 

Jerome 19:44

Do you have any traditions to honor him?

 

Marianne 19:49

I think camping again will be hard.

 

Jerome 19:52

What has helped you the most in your grief? What are the hardest times?

 

Marianne 20:01

Yeah, I don't know I'm kind of with you Jerome, like I don't even know if I've dealt with it. I don't really know if I've even absorbed the idea that he's actually gone. And Brendan too, I don't know if I really soak like soaked in the reality that they're gone. And you know, I don't understand the afterlife. I don't understand those kinds of things. Like I hope for things that have a lot of hopes of what the afterlife is, but I won't understand it until I live it or so like that. So, I don't really know how I've dealt with the grief. I think I'm still in a bit of a stage where I push things down. But I hope, I hope to be passed that one day soon.

 

Jenna Keeble 20:58

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Unsilencing Stories podcast. To listen to more interviews in the series, please go to www.unsilencingstories.com, and if you'd like to share your thoughts on the episode, message us at unsilencingstories@gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening and please share the project with other people you know.