USA First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff

Dear First Lady Ann Lamont,
My name is Donna Dwyer. I am a member of the First Ladies’ Drug Epidemic Memorial
Wall campaign. Our goal is to put up a memorial wall in all 50 State Capitol complexes to
honor our lost loved ones and continue to provide a voice for them. We are all victims of
this national drug crisis and fentanyl poisoning epidemic. We need your help to stop
these senseless deaths.
I am a mother of four. On February 1, 2015, we found my youngest beautiful son, Jeremy
deceased in his room. Jeremy was 29 and left a son who had just turned 12 years old.
Jeremy was a kind, compassionate and helpful young man. He would help anyone he
encountered needing some help. He would give anyone the shirt off his back. Once he
brought home a homeless family with a baby because they had nowhere to stay. They
stayed a couple of months in our home. One day he saw an elderly gentleman across the
street struggling to carry his groceries home. He ran across and carried the man’s
groceries to his home about a mile away. From that day on he looked for him coming by
and carried his packages home for him. He did this once or twice a week until Jeremy
passed. My son suffered from the disease of addiction; heroin being his drug of choice
among other things. We tried to get him help and he finally went on the Methadone
program, however this program did not run in the fashion it should have. There was no
tapering off the methadone, and he was on the program for several years. The causes of
death were combined toxicity of heroin and methadone with more methadone than heroin
in his system on that day’s dose still on his nightstand. I live each day feeling like it just
happened and yet it seems so long ago. The grief is overwhelming at times and there are
constant reminders of his death. The silence in our home is now deafening. I will never be
the same. I pray for all the other moms who have lost children to the drug epidemic or
fentanyl poisoning. When you hug your own children, please think of our children we can
no longer hug.
First Lady Lamont, I am asking if you would assist us in finding a permanent location for a
Drug Epidemic Memorial Wall within our Capitol? I would also like to know if myself and a
few others could meet with you and work together to keep these deaths from happening
again.
Sincerely,
Donna Dwyer
Waterbury, CT
Mother of Jeremy Dwyer Forever 29
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