Leeanne Forever 24

Leeanne Forever 24

In 2019, she died on the streets of Vancouver from a fentanyl overdose.
At her funeral, I learned she had overdosed three times before, brought back from the edge each time, but the fourth was one too many for her fragile body to bear.

We were not close. Unfortunately, my brother and his wife, her parents, were heavy drug users. When Leeanne and her siblings were young, they were placed in foster care. It didn’t save her. She gravitated back toward the same dark path her parents had walked.

Sometimes, she would text me, asking for advice about school or what I thought about her future. I loved those moments with her. She wanted to change her life so badly. And then she had a son. I know she loved him deeply and wanted to do right by him. But she couldn’t escape the generational trauma that haunted our family.

Eventually, it took her life.

Her parents chose an open casket. She looked so beautiful, peaceful, almost perfect, but she was gone. I remember standing there, angry and broken. Her death was not just an accident; it was the result of generations of pain passed down, from great-grandparents to grandparents to parents, a legacy of trauma that stole her future.

It reached my family, too. It touched me and my children.
But we broke the chain.

Leeanne was not so lucky.
And yet, her death was not in vain.

She is the reason Women Like Me was born.
Because of her, over 180 women have written and shared more than 350 true-life stories, stories that are stopping generational trauma one story at a time.

Her story lit the spark.
Our stories keep the flame alive.