There is no one way to grieve. Some build walls. Others retreat into silence. Chadd Cawson chooses alchemy.
Cawson is the organizer of Jeni’s Steps to Overdose Awareness: Honouring Those Gone Too Soon, a walk marking International Overdose Awareness Day. The event takes place Aug. 31 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Crofton Sea Walk.
“I’ve been a bit of an alchemist,” he said. “I’ve kind of transmuted some pain, turned it into something positive.”
Alchemy is Cawson’s wheelhouse; he regularly takes raw material and shapes it into something more. In his journalism, he turns small details of local life into stories that reflect a community. On stage as an actor, he breathes life into his characters. With his annual walk, grief transforms into action, allowing him, and those who join him, to make meaning out of loss.
At the heart of the walk is the loss of his sister, Jeni, who died of an overdose in 2017. She wasn’t just his sister, but his best friend. Their upbringing wasn’t easy, and Cawson often stepped in as her caregiver.
“This was the one thing that I couldn’t save her from,” he says quietly. “I still carry that. Despite the adage, time does not heal all wounds.”
The first year of grief nearly broke him. At his lowest, he attempted suicide. But he survived, and took that as a sign he was meant to do something instead. That ‘something’ became a way to keep Jeni’s memory alive while helping others carry their own losses.
What began as a celebration of Jeni’s life in their hometown of Winnipeg grew into a yearly event that has run since 2018.
“Now it’s grown beyond her,” Cawson said. “It’s about all of us carrying our grief together.”
This year’s event takes place on Aug. 31, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Crofton sign near the ferry terminal. Attendees are encouraged to wear purple, the colour of overdose awareness, and bring non-perishable food or monetary donations for the Cowichan Valley Basket Society, which Cawson calls “a lifeline for our most vulnerable.”
While the walk acknowledges grief, it also celebrates life and community.
The evening will feature live music by James Meyer, Jordan Matchett and Chris Andres. Local businesses have stepped up too, with Osborne Bay Pub donating raffle prizes, Save-On-Foods providing a cake with purple icing to celebrate those we lost, not how we lost them, and Albi De Nardi Gelato offering cool treats.
Participants can sign the name of a loved one lost to addiction or mental health struggles on a piece of driftwood painted purple, which will be released into the water at dusk during a walk lit by purple glowsticks.
The event unfolds against a stark backdrop: in 2024, an average of 20 Canadians a day died of opioid toxicity — 7,146 lives lost.
For Cawson, the walk is as much about hope as it is about grief.
“It’s always heavy,” he says. “Heavy thinking about it, heavy planning it, heavy being present in it. It’s heavy being human right now. But hopefully, when it’s done, I’ll feel a little bit lighter.”
And hopefully, so will everyone who gathers by the water, part of a kind of alchemy born of love and loss, made real with each step they take together.
