Some days don’t announce themselves as important. They start like any other.
I pulled up to work and saw small groups of people scattered around the neighbourhood, clients gathering in familiar corners, conversations already underway. Inside, it was the usual rhythm: greetings exchanged, staff moving in and out, the quiet sense of another long day ahead.
Less than 20 minutes into my shift, the intercom called for Narcan.
I grabbed two and headed out. A client was lying on his back, unresponsive, with a group of people around him, frantic and trying to help. I asked them to step back, called his name, and prepared the first dose. Nothing. Someone nearby started giving breaths without pinching his nose. Another voice shouted instructions that didn’t quite fit the situation. There was urgency, but also confusion.
As I worked, I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that we need to be doing more than just responding. We need to be teaching. The people most likely to witness an overdose are already here, already trying to help. But without the right knowledge, even the best intentions can miss the mark.
That moment stayed with me. Not because it was unusual, but because it wasn’t.
Later, a paramedic, after responding to a second overdose that same day, said to me, “I don’t envy your job.” I didn’t hesitate. “I love my job.” It wasn’t defensive. It was true.
There are easier jobs. Safer jobs. Jobs with clearer boundaries and less chaos. But this work matters in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve stood in it. It’s easy for people to see only the crisis, the disorder, the exhaustion. What they don’t always see is the connection, the trust, the small shifts that happen quietly over time.
For a moment, I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. Did he think this was something I fell into? Something I settled for? Then the day moved on, as it always does, and the thought passed.
Not long after, a woman came into the shelter to report a mess left by people camping near her business. She mentioned the RCMP were already there. I told her I would try to help, though it isn’t always simple to step away from the site.
As she left, another client, who had been sitting nearby, looked at me and said, “People really think you’re responsible for everything we do, hey?”
We both laughed, because it’s true. There’s a common assumption that services like ours somehow “own” the people we support, that we can fix, move, or manage them on demand.
What struck me more was what happened later. That client retold that moment to others at dinner, not with frustration, but with a kind of respect. It reminded me that even when people feel judged or misunderstood by the outside world, they are paying attention to how they are treated within it.
Him and I talked more that day. A real conversation.
He told me he wanted to stop using. Not because someone told him to, but because he missed his son. His son is five. Recently, at school, the class was asked to name things they love. His son wrote down only one thing, his dad.
That stayed with him. You could see it.
When I asked him why he started using in the first place, his answer was simple. His world had been “turned upside down twice.” Drugs, he said, helped quiet the pain when everything else felt unmanageable. For a long time, he had told himself he would quit when he got into rehab. But rehab hadn’t worked out, and the waiting had become its own kind of trap.
Now, for the first time, he was thinking about stopping for himself.
I told him I would walk alongside him in that, however it looked.
That’s the part people don’t always see, these moments of clarity that exist right alongside crisis. The reasons people hold on. The reasons they try again.
Throughout the day, there were other moments too, small interactions that reflect something bigger.
A question about someone’s name that carried an edge of judgment. A person sleeping outside being told to “sit like a normal person.” Moments where it’s clear how easily dignity can be overlooked when someone’s life doesn’t fit within expected norms.
It would be easy to meet those moments with anger. Sometimes that instinct is there. But more and more, I find myself choosing something else, staying grounded, staying focused, protecting the space we’ve built.
Because this work isn’t just about responding to overdoses or managing crises. It’s about holding a line, one that says people deserve respect, even when their lives are messy. Especially then.
If there’s a lesson in days like this, it’s this.
People are often judged at their worst moments, but they are far more than those moments.
They are parents. They are loved. They are trying, even when it doesn’t look like it from the outside.
And the work, my work, is not just to keep people alive, though that matters deeply. It’s also to see them clearly, to meet them where they are, and to remind them, when they forget, that they still matter.
Even on days that start like any other.
Leave a comment