SAUGUS – It was a solemn sight on the lawn of Town Hall Monday night as members of the community gathered for the Saugus Hope & Remembrance Vigil. Those who gathered were there to remember the people who had died of suicide and drug overdoses. The vigil also shone a light on recovery and the stories of those who survived addiction.
Matthew Parlante, an organizer of the event and a member of the Saugus Prevention Coalition, thanked everyone for coming to the event. He also thanked the Town and Town Manager Scott Crabtree for hosting, Power of Recovery and Chelsea’s House for sponsoring the event, and everyone who helped make it happen.
“We thank you, the community, for showing up, standing together, and being a part of this evening. The pain of losing a loved one never fully goes away, but by coming together, sharing hope, and lifting one another up, we can begin to heal together,” Parlante said.
Katy Dos Santos, a founder of the Saugus Prevention Coalition and event organizer, spoke next.
“My friend Amy (Chiaravalloti) and I decided to start the Saugus Prevention Coalition over a year ago with the help of many individuals. One of the driving individuals in our support has been Matt Parlante… In addition to being moms to multiple children who live and attend schools in Saugus, Amy and I both have extensive backgrounds and experience in working in community health and health education,” Dos Santos said.
She continued that they had seen other communities with effective prevention coalitions and knew Saugus needed one.
“Our mission is to improve the quality of life for our youth in (the) Saugus community through positive experiences in a safe adult-supported environment and to reduce negative behaviors and promote positive pro-social actions among our youth,” she said. “Our focus for this evening is to honor those we’ve lost to suicide and overdose and to shine a light on the stigma that surrounds mental health, substance misuse, and addiction, and to support the families that carry their memory.”
Rev. Jason Makos of the Saugus Catholic Collaborative took to the podium to share that he was grateful to be in recovery and that the greatest decision in his life was becoming sober. He stated that these were important topics that needed to be spoken about and to erase the stigma.
Three speakers shared their stories of long-term recovery. First was Shannon White, who, after years of addiction starting at the age of 12 with her first sip of alcohol, is now an addiction therapist at Chapters Recovery Center and a trauma response advocate in Charlestown.
“Charlestown, at one point, had the highest fatal overdose rate in Massachusetts in one square mile in 2005, so you can imagine how my community was impacted because we all know each other so well,” White said.
She shared that she had grown up in a single-parent home. Her father was an alcoholic and a drug addict who was in and out of her life until she was 10. White then noted that, though many people point out gateway drugs, she believes that the true gateway drug is trauma.
She then told the story of her first traumatic childhood experience:
“I remember laying in bed at night waiting for the doorknob to turn, wondering if it would be one of those nights where my father would get arrested or he would pass out on the couch… What would happen is he would be beating my mother physically on a regular basis, and my older sister would run to the neighbor’s house, my other brother and sister would hide under the bed, and I’d sit on the couch and hold my mother as a 5-year-old little girl because that was my way of protecting her. I remember he was leaving, and I ran to go lock the door… He kicked the door in to come back and hit my mother one more time, and the doorknob split my head open.”
The feelings of abandonment and worthlessness grew inside her, and through the years, she progressed to being a heroin user. White said she ended up outliving all her friends, and now she has been clean and sober for 21 years.
“I remember someone said to me, ‘Shannon, would you die for your daughter,’ and I said, ‘Of course.’ They said, ‘Well, why don’t you live for her?’ White recalled.
Eric Mazzeo also spoke about his journey and serves as the assistant director of youth substance use prevention for the City of Everett.
“I think it’s a beautiful thing to see a community come together with such an important topic,” Mazzeo said.
Mazzeo highlighted the importance of feeling comfortable with yourself, especially as a man, and the ability to share your emotions and cry.
“Being able to talk about your feelings, breaking that stigma, things that are going on inside… I had these issues going on inside that I didn’t know what they were because I wouldn’t speak on it, I wouldn’t talk to people, and I was too afraid. I was running off of fear,” he said.
He noted that he didn’t come from a bad home; he had what he needed, but he was always trying to gain the approval of others and act a certain way because he wanted to be “that cool person,” due to how uncomfortable he was with himself.
“I didn’t know it would take years of me in and out of detox, in and out of jail, until finally I would be willing to do whatever it took, and that willingness was very hard to come by until my life started to get better,” he said.
Mazzeo said that it’s OK to not be OK because everyone is human, and he emphasized that it was important to seek help.
Nick Zell was the last to speak before the reading of the names, sharing his story of recovery.
“I was a resident at Chelsea’s House for two years when I initially got clean this time, so that place holds a special spot in my heart,” Zell said. “But I’m also here because my family’s been affected by overdose.”
Zell said that his sister died in 2020 after an overdose. He remembers the call he got from his father, saying that he immediately knew what was going on when he heard his father speak. He continued that his mother was the only one left of her brothers and sisters, as they also died due to an overdose.
“It has tortured my family, but thankfully god saw differently for me,” he said.
The last day Zell ever used was in 2016 after a night at the police department. He continued to be a part of recovery and continues to follow the steps to stay on the path he’s on.
“My life was a disaster… I was willing to do absolutely anything. I had gotten clean before, and I chose to take my own will back and do it the way I wanted to do it,” he said.
The names of those who died of suicide and overdose were then read aloud, and a bell was rung after every name to honor and remember them.
