Written for Naloxone Saves, an Overdose Awareness Day event in Cleveland

My love, my sibling, my parent, my friend.
Family.
You are family to me.

Your perfection is not required.
It never was.
Not to love you.
Not to grieve you.

You are, and have always been, worthy.

We know the truth of you.
Your love, your contradictions, your challenge.
We know your laughter and hurt and hope.
We carry you with us, even now.

So tonight we call you by your name.
It is Beloved.

Tonight we allow ourselves to love you fully.
Tonight we allow ourselves to grieve you honestly.

We miss you.
And we know that your life, was a life worth saving.
No matter your choices or your struggle.

We miss you.
Because grief is born of knowing.

May your memory be a flame for the way forward. A way that compels us to act as agents of resurrection, proclaiming loudly that every life is worth saving and all loss is worthy of our grief.

Amen.