A new memoir explores a mother’s grief in the shadow of B.C.’s toxic drug crisis

B.C.’s toxic drug crisis is showing no signs of slowing down. In 2015, a year before the province declared it a public health emergency, 529 people lost their lives to it. Each one of those 529 had a story. Holden After & Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose by Tara McGuire is one of them.

An artistic soul who expressed himself through drawing and spray-painting graffiti, Holden was 21 when he died of a heroin overdose. The reader is introduced to a lovable couch-surfer with a bit of a self-destructive streak who goes from one job or adventure to the next. One of the few constants in his life is a mother who just wants him to complete his journey to adulthood.

Today is publication day for “Holden, After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose” by @TaraJMcGuire. I’m excited to announce she will be joining me on the #CityNewsBookhshelf on @CityNewsVAN this weekend! @Arsenalpulp @zgstories_ pic.twitter.com/sJbUciksP7

— John Ackermann (@jackermann) September 27, 2022

It’s not a story McGuire necessarily wanted to share, at least not at first.

“It’s so private and it’s so intimate and painful,” she says. “But, when I think about the thousands and thousands of people who have suffered the same loss that I have and we’re all just kind of sitting here in our houses by ourselves, it makes me think that it’s a waste [not to].”

McGuire became a writer later in life. An accomplished broadcaster and voice-over artist, she was best known as the co-host of a top-rated Vancouver morning radio show for 19 years. Writing Holden After & Before was a way for the mother of two to process her grief.

“I don’t know if I would have healed differently if I would have felt differently seven years later, if I hadn’t written the book,” she admits. “The process was very painful to stay in those moments, very deeply for a long, long period of time. But I think in some ways it has helped me sort of reflect on Holden’s passing and what his death has meant to me and what I can make out of it.”

Since his death, the number of lives lost to toxic drugs has exploded, a fact McGuire finds both sad and frustrating.

“The overdose crisis isn’t a drug crisis. It’s a mental health crisis and those needs are clearly not being met. I know so many people who said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to give up drugs. What can I do?’ There’s nothing available, it’s so difficult.”

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She documents her son’s mental health struggles and how her family tried to deal with them. But, as is so often the case, the full extent of his troubles only became apparent after his death.

Holden After & Before isn’t a linear memoir, rather it combines fiction with non-fiction elements, the real with the imagined, of what ifs and what could have beens, both from McGuire’s point of view and her son’s. The result is a powerful exploration of grief, loss, and maybe even redemption told, as only a mother can.

“I hope he’d be okay with it. I think he’s in a place where shame and embarrassment do not exist, so, let’s go with, he’s fine with it.”

Holden After & Before is also about finding the power to move forward.
“I think this book is for anyone who knows someone struggling with substance use disorders, anyone who’s lost someone, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be through drugs, like, this book is about grief.”

Losing Holden not only changed McGuire but also her relationship with her younger child.

“Oh, yeah, we talk about everything,” she says. “And she doesn’t get in trouble. You know, when she does things wrong, we talk about it in terms of, ‘What do you think about this? Maybe you could have done this a little bit differently’ or ‘Failure is a really meaningful part of life. How do we learn from this kind of thing?'”

“I don’t have a perspective with her anymore, that she has to be like a quote good person. She IS a good person, even with all of her mistakes and all of the mistakes that I make.”

“I think that just a little more openness may have helped,” McGuire adds. “It may not have made any difference with Holden. I don’t know. He was an adult. He was 21 years old. He was living his life and making his choices so maybe…maybe nothing would have changed.”

Holden After & Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose is available from Arsenal Pulp Press.