He lost his father and brother to fentanyl, so he wrote ‘honest’ death notices

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Matthew Larventz owns a uniquely unhappy place in the tragedy that is Ottawa’s opioid epidemic.

The 34-year-old Ottawa lobbyist has lost both his father, James, and his brother, Christopher, to fentanyl overdoses in the past seven years.

“I have lost half my nuclear family to this crisis,” he says.

But unlike many others wounded by the effects of the raging opioid epidemic, Larventz has not papered over the cause of his grief. In death notices for both his brother and his father, he wrote openly about their addictions and the nature of their deaths.

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Christopher’s obituary was published last month, on May 16, in the Ottawa Citizen.

“He overdosed alone in his apartment, just steps from Parliament Hill, another tragic victim in Canada’s opioid and toxic drug supply crisis,” Larventz wrote. “Christopher was stronger than anyone I’ve ever known fighting this disease … I never got to tell him how proud of him I was for that, how I could never have lasted a day in his shoes.”

Two years earlier, Larventz published a notice in memoriam about his father, James, who died in June 2017 of a fentanyl overdose. His father’s original death notice said only that he “passed away suddenly” at age 55.

Larventz decided to wrestle with the truth. He researched his father’s life and death, and wrote about them in June 2022. “I wanted to reclaim his story and tell the truth,” Larventz says. “It was cathartic.”

The notice in memoriam spoke of his father’s traumatic childhood, his years in prison and the silence that surrounded his overdose death. “I’m writing these words today because I feel strongly that it is time to end the stigma of addiction and drug use,” he wrote.

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Larventz says he was inspired to write the honest, forthright death notices after reading a newspaper story about how people were using them to put a face on the opioid epidemic, which is often reduced to numbers.

“I think we need to humanize this tragedy,” he says. “These are our friends and neighbours who are dying.”

Since 2016, the epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Canadians. But the public announcement of those deaths — the vast majority of them (80 per cent) connected to fentanyl and its analogues — have usually been shrouded in vague language and obfuscation. In a kind of face-saving code, death notices often describe a loved one’s “sudden,” “unexpected” or “accidental” passing.

According to Ottawa Public Health, more than 450 people in this city have died from opioid-related overdoses in the past three years.

A handful of death notices in the Ottawa Citizen have spoken plainly about the role of that epidemic in the death of their loved ones.

In March 2022, for instance, a death notice for 27-year-old Riley Whelan Taylor said the funny, quirky and gentle young man had fought against mental illness and substance use for years. “He was taken from us far too soon by a tragic accident related to the devastating opioid health crisis that is affecting so many across this country,” his family wrote.

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Riley’s mother, Christine Taylor, said she wrote the honest obituary in an attempt to combat the stigma that surrounds addiction and mental illness.

“It comes from a place of wanting to help others,” she said in an interview. “It’s an illness. You know, people can say, ‘My uncle Bob died from cancer.’ To break that stigma with addiction, I think you have to be open about it. … These are just normal, everyday kids. It is a huge number and people look the other way.”

At the time of his death, neither Riley nor his parents had told many people about his addiction issues. “I knew about Riley’s drug use for quite a few years, but we never told anyone about it because I felt it was his story and he needed to share it with who he wanted to share it,” Taylor said. “But when he passed, we just thought, ‘If it could help someone else to know about this, let’s do it.’”

Riley Taylor worked as a chef and was an accomplished musician who wrote and performed his own music.

In the death notice for 29-year-old Mallory Nora Morton-Rhéaume, her family described how she was removed from life support on Jan. 30, 2020 after her organs had been harvested for donation. “Her passing at such a young age was a direct result of mental illness and drug addiction,” they wrote. The family asked mourners to encourage their political representatives to do more to combat the opioid and mental health crises afflicting the province.

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Morton-Rhéaume died after injecting herself with fentanyl in the bathroom of a homeless shelter. It ended the family’s 17-year struggle to find her the right help.

Her mother, Martine, said she wrote an honest obituary in an attempt to remove some of the shame that surrounds addiction.

“To combat this crisis, those suffering from addictions must be viewed not as criminals but as individuals battling an illness that can be addressed,” she said. “Raising awareness and understanding is crucial.”

While navigating medical services, treatment programs, social services and police interactions, Morton-Rhéaume often suffered scorn for her weaknesses and mistakes. “The greatest challenge was her fear of the police and the social stigma surrounding her illness,” Martine said.

Matthew Larventz, meanwhile, is one of the few Canadians to have ever written two death notices about loved ones lost to fentanyl.

The Larventzes grew up in Aylmer, Que., but their early family life was coloured by their father’s drug addiction. Their grandparents helped raise them. “We had a tough childhood because our father spent most of it in a federal prison,” says Larventz. “He struggled with addiction and mental health throughout most of his life.”

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Larventz isn’t sure why he went down such a different road than his brother, Christopher, who drifted after high school and fell into drug use.

“Maybe he needed my father more than I did,” he says. “I think I also had friends and their parents who were my guardian angels, and kept tabs on me, showed me what loved look like. I think I got really lucky.”

It wasn’t until 2019, when Christopher was evicted from his apartment, that Larventz came to understand the depth of his brother’s addiction. He tried to help. Christopher lived with his grandparents, and on the street. Larventz would drive him to rehab or to court, and pay for his lawyers and his groceries.

“I just did what I could,” says Larventz, the married father of an infant boy, “but I didn’t have a situation that allowed for him to live with me.”

Last fall, Christopher found an apartment with Ottawa Community Housing. Larventz was relieved because it meant he didn’t have to worry about his brother being on the streets of Ottawa for another winter.

Yet, when two plainclothes police officers showed up at his door last month, he knew what they were about to tell him.

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“I always thought it was inevitable, but I thought there would be more years to try to save him,” says Larventz. “If it was 1985 and he was addicted to something, I think then we could have had more time. The runway might have been longer, but with fentanyl, it’s another story.”

Larventz delivered an honest, heartfelt eulogy at his brother’s funeral service. He talked about the pain that addiction and mental illness impose on individuals — and their families.

“The truth is that Christopher put me through the wringer,” Larventz told mourners. “There was just so much pain at every corner. … It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t Chris who was the source of that pain but the disease and illness that burdened him. All of this was compounded by a broken health-care system, a toxic drug supply, a society that dehumanized my brother, and ultimately, a country that has failed to confront a crisis with no signs of slowing down.

“There was a moment that will forever be seared into my memory, like an awful tattoo,” he added. “It was when he was at his lowest. He said, ‘Matthew — people don’t even look at me anymore.’ I had never felt so useless, but also ashamed for committing that very same sin.”

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He challenged mourners to tell all of Christopher’s story: the whole thing, the good and bad.

“Challenge your colleagues, strangers, friends and family when you hear someone talk about addiction, mental illness or someone who’s unhoused,” he continued. “Challenge them to talk about them with the empathy, respect and humanity that they deserve. And remind them that they are our loved ones, our neighbours and, ultimately, our responsibility.”

Andrew Duffy is a National Newspaper Award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in Ottawa. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

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