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Madelyn Linsenmeir, 30, photographed during one of her routine walks with her son Ayden. "Her addiction did not define her, but she defined her way of life," wrote Kate O. Neill, Linsenmeir's sister, in an obituary that moved readers this week across the country.
Courtesy of Maura O'Neill
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Courtesy of Maura O'Neill
Madelyn Linsenmeir, 30, photographed during one of her routine walks with her son Ayden. "Her addiction did not define her, but she defined her way of life," wrote Kate O. Neill, Linsenmeir's sister, in an obituary that moved readers this week across the country.
Courtesy of Maura O'Neill
The epidemic of opioids kills every day about 115 people. But rarely does a victim gain the kind of attention that a young mother's death notice, published on the website of The Burlington Free Press, received earlier this week.
Kate O'Neill wrote in the obituary how her sister Madelyn Linsenmeir had been struggling with a 12-year addiction during which she had found herself an addict. Under a picture of the smiling 30-year-old girl, her toddler son hoisted on her back, O Neill portrays Linsenmeir as well-rounded, a gifted singer and a warm presence.
"Even if we would have paid a ransom to get her back, no matter what price in the world, this sickness would not let her go until she was gone," says O'Neill. of his sister.
O'Neill has never expected the Obit to gain the traction it has made. The leading media, from The Washington Post to People magazine, described Linsenmeir's obit as "heartbreaking" and "poignant". On Twitter, Ivanka Trump pronounced The story of Linsenmeir is "raw" and "devastating".
In the midst of an opioid crisis that struck indiscriminately almost every corner of the country, what made his story resonate so much?
O "Neill thinks that the omnipresence of opioid addiction explains why her sister's obit has moved so many people. "It's their story, or their neighbor's story, or the story of their daughter, or the story of their colleague's daughter," she confided to Scott Simon, of NPR.
According to O'Neill, the stigma of addiction too often constitutes a significant barrier to saving lives, even though nearly a third of Americans know someone who is or has been addicted to opioids, according to the report. American Psychiatric Association.
O 'Neill felt that she could not pay homage to her sister without emphasizing the realities of an addiction that had begun at the age of 16, when Linsenmeir had been trying for the first time times the OxyContin prescription pain medication for an evening in high school.
"This part of her life was so central to her adult identity," she says. "Her addiction did not define her, but she defined her way of life, not to include that would not have been an honest tribute to who she was."
"I want people to know that Maddie is a face of that," she says. "So many dependent people do not look like the picture [of Maddie]," she says. "Maddie did not look like this picture when she was in the throes of its use. "
From left to right: Maura's sisters O Neill and Kate O Neill lost their sister, Maddie Linsenmeir (center right), victim of an opioid addiction. Maureen Linsenmeir, Linsenmeir's mother, sits to her right.
Courtesy of Kate O'Neill
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Courtesy of Kate O'Neill
From left to right: Maura's sisters O Neill and Kate O Neill lost their sister, Maddie Linsenmeir (center right), victim of an opioid addiction. Maureen Linsenmeir, Linsenmeir's mother, sits to her right.
Courtesy of Kate O'Neill
Brandon del Pozo, a police chief in the hometown of Linsenmeir, Burlington, agrees. But he laments that the thousands of lives lost each year due to drug abuse are failing to hold the country's attention in the same way that the Linsenmeir story has been able to do. More than a week after his passing, his story has had a lasting influence in the tumultuous cycle of the news.
In a publication on Facebook, del Pozo wrote:
Do readers think it's the first time that a beautiful young darling mother of a pastoral state is addicted to Oxy and dies of the descent that she has caused? And what about the rest of the victims, who were not so beautiful and lived in oppressed cities or in the rust belt? They too had mothers crying for them and blaming themselves.
The object was "poignant and true," Pozo told NPR, "but it's not new." He felt compelled to react to the acceleration of national traction when People – a publication with a large and varied readership – published the history of Linsenmeir. "We should have had this conversation years ago," he says.
As he discussed on Facebook, "[I]f Maddie was a black man from the Bronx found dead in his bathroom after an overdose, no matter whether the author of the obituary of this type had won the [Man] Booker Prize, there would be no article crying in People about it. "
He points out that the latest wave of opioid epidemics has affected all races and all classes over the past decade.
"People say that they care about it, but the best policy responses have fallen on deaf ears," he said.
When Pozo became chief of police in 2015, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger asked him to help lead the city's public health efforts.
This year, the police chief said, Burlington police have partnered with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Police Research Forum to establish best practices that municipal leaders can take to reduce opioid-related deaths.
Among the best practices put in place by the city, it is necessary to facilitate access to buprenorphine, an anti-drug addiction that many doctors are still unable to prescribe.
"If you ask public health researchers what we should do [to combat opioid abuse] we do them, "says del Pozo.
Kate O'Neill's reflections on how to fight opioid death align with those of Burlington's city leaders. "Our hope also lies in the decision makers, the politicians and the people who can make the necessary changes to stop these deaths," she said. "Put our money where our tweets are."
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