Episode 25: Bowe McDonald in Cranbrook, B.C. Remembers his Friend John

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 Myles Toddington speak with Bowe McDonald in Cranbrook, B.C. Bowe memorializes his best friend John who experienced a fatal opioid overdose at age 22.

Bowe 01:16

These questions focus on remembering someone who experienced a fatal overdose. 

Bowe 01:21

My name is Bowe McDonald. I'm born and raised here, here in Cranbrook. I've lived in Calgary for about a year. Other than that, I've been a local boy. Yeah, see my own self it was. It was my best friend. He was never a fentanyl user, his own self ended up getting a dirty batch of MDMA and I remember getting a phone call from my mom that morning about him being dead. 

Bowe 01:51

Is there one person you would like to speak on who died from an overdose? 

Yeah, mine is always going to be my best friend. Me and him hold each other down vice versa and fi one of us get mad the other one would calm the other one down. I miss him every day but it's all about doing it right for them right. 

John Stone was my best friend. He passed away. He was 22 when he died. He lived here in Cranbrook. He was a local grown boy as well. 

Bowe 02:21

Could you describe a moment that you shared together with them? 

My best memories got to be me and another close one of my friends or friends, we're all camping out Canada Day weekend. My truck got stolen that weekend but me and him took my truck out Fairburn and I told him that my tires were too bald to be going down this little quad road. Sure enough, I popped a tire. I looked at him and I told him that he was going to get me a tire the next morning and he ended up stripping my lug nuts my truck got stolen. 

Bowe 02:58

What do you remember most about it? 

What I remember most about him dying is his funeral. All these fake people who didn't really hang around with him, didn't really care about him, weren't there for him through the hard times, sitting there crying in the front row, acting like his best friend. I was the only one to go up to hug his dad and tell him that he might have lost his son, but he gained another one at the same time. Man, it's like it was yesterday. Me and Johnny egged each other's addictions on, and we egged each other on in life, we challenge each other in life. 

Bowe 03:41

My first real memory Johnny? No, no, I was too small. And that's why I did what I did working for him. He was one of the only guys to stand up for me when I was too weak to stand up for my own self. So, I had such a loyalty to him. 

Bowe 03:55

What is your best memory of your friend?  

See, mine was probably going up smoking pot and riding bikes. 

Bowe 04:05

What's your most vivid memory of your friend? 

Because I can remember my best friend’s laugh like, like he's still here. He had the most dorky little laugh I've ever heard in my life. It still gets to me to this day. 

Bowe 04:20

What has been the hardest thing about losing them? 

See, my biggest thing is I feel whole. Like ever since Johnny has been going, I don't have my best friend to talk to you, man. It's hard some days. 

Bowe 04:33

What would you ask them if they were here today? 

Mine would be why did you do the dirty batch because me and him talked that night and I told them not to. I just don't understand why. 

Bowe 04:47

What do you miss most about them? 

He was there through relationships. He was there through me trying to kill myself. He was always there. He made sure when I you know had nowhere to stay I had somewhere to stay. I know today, still today, he'd be helping me. You can ask anybody who knew Johnny, there's over 300 people out at his funeral. And it was heartwarming, but in the same breath for me it was it made me sick. It made me sick because there were so many people who talked so much shit and so much trash about him who showed up who cried, and boohoo and I was so emotional. So, I felt like a robot. 

Bowe 05:29

Can you talk about the biggest obstacles they overcame in life? 

What happened there as he got busted with an ounce of weed in his sock, and somehow John got a lawyer up his sleeve, he had this lawyer come and sit down at the school board, and he got his grade 12 out of this whole scenario somehow and wanting to get sober. He was on the waiting list to go to rehab when he died. That's a hard thing for me to swallow a lot of the time, because if he got sobered, he'd probably still be here today. I do think so. 

Bowe 06:05

What was your relationship like? 

He's on my arm, his ashes are in my tattoo. He'll forever live on in me. I remember him looking like his little white boy with the biggest curliest, whitest afro you've ever seen. It was something to see that's for sure. 

Bowe 06:25

What were their hopes and dreams for the future? 

See, John John's biggest dream. He wanted to own his own business. He was an entrepreneur, he wanted to own his own business legally and live a clean life. A lot of people disagree on the whole fact that it wasn't a serious idea. John, I knew that kid so well, the day that his girlfriend hung herself. That was the day he died. He was never the same. He told me, he told me every day that he wanted to be with her and that's all he could say the day that he died. 

Bowe 06:58

How are you different now than you were before you lost them? 

Yeah, we all have our shitty days. But it's all about, like I said, trying to do right by their memory. The most that I've probably changed is I've stopped fighting as much. I used to fight five, five days a week solid for three years straight, because that was my job. And that's what I had to do. And John was too weak at that point in time, mentally and physically, to protect himself. And like I said, because of what he did for me when we were kids. I felt that obligation. 

Bowe 07:32

What is the image that persists?

The image for me that persists is John laughing out in the living room and you know, telling everybody how to live their life, giving everybody advice on their life, and then how to fix their, their issues and problems. And then me and him go into the room and cry like a bunch of little babies not knowing how to deal with our own things. 

Myles 07:56

Yeah, it's easy to give advice. 

Bowe 07:59

Yeah. But to take is a whole different story for sure. 

Bowe 08:03

Do you have any traditions that you honor for them? 

Every year on his birthday, we go and shoot off like $700-800 worth of fireworks. And this year, I really thought up until that celebration of life that I had let it go. That I was over it. But that's when I relapsed and realized that I wasn't okay, and I would probably never let it go.

Bowe 08:35

What are the hardest times?

Well for me, it's his death date and my birthday, especially Mother's Day because he used to go by his mum flowers every year, so I do now. 

Bowe 08:50

How would you just describe the deceased? 

He had so much life left, and you just couldn't see it anymore, you know. My own self, I've only lost a select few really close friends. In this last year being homeless and living in the homeless shelter, I've lost a lot more. 

Bowe 09:07

What did you call them? Any nicknames or Terms of Endearment?

Johnny. Everybody called them Little John, white boy Johnny. And then at the end of it, about a year before he passed away. And that's what's on my arm there, is we started calling him Little Sav or Little Savage because he always had the savage jokes that nobody else would come out and say but you're taking it, but he'd stayed all day long man, so I started nicknaming him. 

Bowe 09:40

Did he or she have a pet name for you? 

My bro used to call me Bobo or Bobo the Clown because he knew how to get right under my skin. Oh yeah, just to get me going. 

Bowe 09:53

Is there any particular lesson that you learn from the deceased? 

That would be a good one for me but my biggest one is to live life at the fullest because actually when at John's they played a video at his funeral of him that I took of all of us partying and he was all fucked up on the couch. He looks into the camera, he says, “If I pass, don't cry because I was here for a good time, not a long time” and it's true. 

Bowe 10:27

How long did you know the deceased? 

Mine was probably about 15 to 17 years. 

Bowe 10:35

What do you think they valued the most in life?

Family. Had a good family. That would be John Stewart and his friends. His friends. He gave his shirt off his back, and he did more than once for me, literally and figuratively. 

Bowe 10:52

What words would you use to describe his or her character?

John. John was a manipulated, he was a follower. Yeah, and that was his biggest downfall. I think he would do anything to make anybody happy. And for me, I was the opposite. I think that's how I've really tried to change my life. And you know, trying to honor his memory is trying to help anybody who helps me. 

Bowe 11:20

How did you meet? 

Yeah, so for me and John, I actually met John through his stepbrother, who is in the same grade as me. Mikey always stuck out for me because I was, I was bullied through school. 

Bowe 11:32

What particular time do you recall them was especially joyful?

John was always, always right up to go give his mom this big bouquet of flowers and box of chocolates and tell her that he loved her and give her a big hug because I always, I always wished I could have been like that with my mom growing up. Me and my parents are doing better and all, but me my parents have never really seen eye to eye on a lot of things. 

Bowe 11:57

What was the deceased laugh like? 

Johnny? Johnny's was loud but it was so dorky. He sounded like this little kid; do you know what I mean like? He just giggled. It was like a little schoolgirl giggle almost, but he was my bro. See John, I feel for myself that he went too early because I still need them to this day. I think about them all the time. But for the big picture, I think he went at the right time. If it wasn't for him dying and people looking at it like they did because me and John we went hardest of the hard seeing him pass, for a lot of people that got them sober. So, in the big picture, I think he went at the right time. For me and his dad, it wasn't the right time. His dad still needs him. It brings a lot of feelings but it's also in a lot of things in a lot of ways. It’s helping me heal, I think in a sense, being open about it. 

Bowe 13:08

If you knew they could drop by and visit tomorrow. What would your day spent together look like? 

See mine would probably be having both the dirt bikes that I have all done up, that's the reason a big reason why I haven't rebuilt both of them because I've haven’t since he died. We were supposed to do that together. I've been talking about doing them with his dad. So hopefully that's the thing, that's what I hope anyways, either be wrenching on the bikes, rebuilding them, or take him for a cruise or just jumping in the truck and going because he was one of the only motherfuckers you could sit in the front seat and laugh the whole time and say, “I love the way you drive, motherfucker”. His stepdaughter’s name was Lily. So, he had a Lily tattooed up his arm and that was his favorite. 

Bowe 14:02

What type of music did the deceased listen to you? 

My brother listened to rap. 

Bowe 14:07

What was a piece of clothing or something else the deceased wore that you found characteristic of them?

My biggest one that I remember, John always had a durag in his pocket. He always had this black and white, I can't remember the brand name right now, but I had the shirt. It's the sweater itself and he cut it off, John, because it was a pullover. He cut it because he had it from when we were like 13-14, so he cut it just a little bit and by the time I threw it out it was cut halfway down my chest because I was so big compared to him. See, and now that I think about it, it was a red dragon logo sweater that he wore. 

Bowe 14:51

How did the deceased impact your life? 

John changed my life forever and him dying changed it again. It's hard to even look at his brother. Yeah, they don't look similar, but they are so, so the same. And as selfish as it is, I'm glad his brother has moved on to bigger and better pastures. Because I don't have to feel that hurt every time I see him driving through the McDonald's drive-thru because half the time I had his brother sitting beside me, or like, actually going and grabbing my truck there the other day, I was thinking about it on the drive home about how he'd be sitting in the front seat with me, how excited he would have been for me to have the truck that I just went and bought and how much fun we would have had in it. 

Bowe 15:38

How will you did honor the deceased memory? 

I honor Johnny every day by like I said, helping anybody who hasn't done wrong by me. And the last question here Myles and it's going to be a harder one for the both of us, but what would you wish that you said to them before they died? 

Love you, buddy. That's really all I can think of when I read that question a minute ago. It's I love you, and I'll hold it down.

Jenna Keeble 16:08

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.