MARLBOROUGH – Roughly 100 people gathered on the lawn outside the Walker Building in Marlborough on Aug. 27 for this year’s candlelight vigil marking International Overdose Awareness Day.
Speaking to the crowd, a slate of event speakers frequently mentioned the sea of purple flags to their left.
The 2,125 flags honored each of 2,125 lives lost to opioid overdoses in Massachusetts, as measured by the state Department of Public Health.
The number of flags is down from a 2022 peak of 2,357. But by unanimous agreement among the speakers, it is still too high.
“We can make those flags be smaller and smaller every year,” said Nick Joyce, the vigil’s audio engineer and production manager.
Joyce took the microphone to discuss his experience of recovery.
“This disease is here, and it’s not going away,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I let it take any more than it has to.”
International Overdose Awareness Day falls on Aug. 31 each year. National Recovery Month happens annually in September.
Marlborough resident and vigil organizer Kathy Leonard lost her son to an overdose in 2014. She organized her first vigil less than a year later and has continued placing flags every August since then, interrupted only by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking with the Community Advocate after assembling this year’s flag display on Aug. 23, Leonard said she has seen progress over the years.
Though far from gone, the stigma around talking about addiction has lessened. Marlborough’s annual vigil is now one of many in the area. Plus, lifesaving tools like Narcan, which can reverse an overdose if administered in time, have proliferated.
Still, the crisis continues.
The number of statewide opioid overdose deaths started rising in 2020 and reached an all-time high in 2022 after dipping following a previous peak in 2016.
In Marlborough, there were 10 overdose deaths in 2022. Where statewide deaths decreased, the local numbers of deaths increased in 2023, with 12 recorded fatal overdoses.
“One [death] is way too many,” Leonard said during her vigil remarks. “And every day, more families are left to pick up the pieces.”
Leonard spoke after Heather Gutierrez, the executive administrator in Mayor J. Christian Dumais’ office, delivered a proclamation from Dumais in recognition of overdose awareness day.
Leonard finished her comments with a call to action.
“I know that the road ahead may seem long,” she said. “But I also know that by supporting one another, we can move forward with hope.”
Marlborough Hospital Vice President of Marketing and Communications Ellen Carlucci highlighted the hospital’s efforts to help decrease the amount of deadly drug overdoses, including Narcan training events.
Among other speakers, Kathryn Stygles Peirce discussed losing her son to an overdose. She spoke about her grief and recalled sitting in the crowd at a previous vigil in Marlborough.
“I sat up on the hill and just wept,” she said. “But then I looked around and I wasn’t the only one weeping. We were passing tissues. We were starting conversations. We were making connections and bonds.”
Now the leader of a grief support group in Natick for loved ones of people who died due to overdoses, Stygles Peirce led the crowd in shouting out the names of fatal overdose victims.
The vigil wrapped up after additional speakers shared their stories and after attendees lit candles.
Still eyeing the future, Leonard and other speakers sent vigil attendees home with a message they delivered throughout the event.
“Let’s acknowledge overdose awareness day and recovery month…and honor the lives that we’ve lost by working toward a future where fewer lives are lost,” Leonard said.