08/21/2026
Today is National Fentanyl Prevention & Awareness Day.
(Before Fentanyl Poisoning/After Fentanyl Poisoning)
For me, this isn’t just another awareness day on the calendar. This is my life. This is the life of so many other families who have lost someone they love to fentanyl.
A few days ago, I woke up just feeling off, my head hurt, I had brain fog, and I felt like I was trying not to cry all day. Yesterday was much the same.
Then it hit me!!!
Oh yeah, Friday is National Fentanyl Awareness Day.
Sometimes our hearts and our bodies remember before our minds even realize why.
When you have lost someone to fentanyl, you don’t need a national awareness day to remind you. You are aware every single day.
Someone sent me this picture of myself, and when I looked at it I fell to my knees, then one thought immediately came to mind:
This is what fentanyl awareness looks like after the awareness campaigns are over,
a MOTHER at her SON’s grave.
When the posts stop being shared, the awareness ribbons come down, and the day on the calendar passes, families like mine are still living it.
The empty chair is still empty.
The birthdays still come.
The anniversaries still come.
And there are nights when being beside your child’s headstone is as close as you can get to holding him again.
This is what fentanyl took from me!
And this is why we keep fighting.
Why we keep speaking their names!
Why we fight to get into our schools and reach our youth before tragedy happens.
Because THAT is prevention!
Prevention is giving young people the truth before they are faced with a decision. It is teaching them about fentanyl, counterfeit pills, substance use, overdose, Narcan, peer pressure, and the very real dangers they are facing today.
I cannot change what happened to Trey.
But I can use his story, his life, and my voice to fight to prevent another mother from having to lie beside her child’s grave.
I would give anything for there to be no reason for a National Fentanyl Awareness Day.
But until that day comes, I will keep showing up. I will keep speaking. I will keep fighting.
For Trey!
For every life already lost!
For every family living with an empty chair!
For the lives we still have time to save!
💜Awareness matters!
💜Education matters!
💜Prevention matters