COEUR d’ALENE — On the hillside overlooking the water Sunday night at Independence Point, 21 photos stood.  

A boy paused on his way from their beach, asking who the people on the stands were. 

“People who have lost their life to addiction,” Jason Cowan said. 

Cowan joined 208 Recovery North because he was able to escape a cycle that could otherwise have taken his life. 

“I’ve lived with addiction and feel like I was lucky enough to beat it; a lot of people out here weren’t lucky enough,” Cowan said. “I feel like that’s the least I could do, I feel like it’s in everybody’s backyard and it could have happened to anybody’s kid. We just want to try to stop it happening to anybody else.”

Tess Reasor said the outpouring of those who have faced addiction or lost people they cared about due to overdose has been alternately heartbreaking and hopeful. 

Each of those people had a family, friends, hobbies and deserved to be remembered, she said. 

“When 208 Recovery started a support group, we decided to put a digital memorial wall on our website to use their family photos in awareness projects like this. My inbox started flooding with photos,” Reasor said. 

State resources through the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, she said, the group learned of 42 people who lost their lives due to overdose in Kootenai County. Of that total, 38 were county residents. 

They were able to get 21 photos to be represented in the vigil after the last daylight faded from the sky in their memory for International Overdose Awareness Day. 

“These are real people, when you put the face to it, they really look like family and they are family. We’re going to light a candle for them,” Reasor said.  

As candles passed their flame from person to person, some hugged and cried, as others laid flowers at the post holding up the photo of a loved one or sat by the photo of the person they were missing. 

“April 7, 2006, was when I lost my father to methadone,” Kala Hall said. 

Her father was a veteran and, at one point, the FBI tried to recruit him.  

“He was a veteran and he loved Jesus,” Hall said. 

Once, he won a bet requiring him to eat goldfish, she recalled with a laugh. 

But when her father's body required surgery after surgery and his physical and emotional pain took too much of a toll, Hall wound up losing him to overdose when the balancing act became too great. 

Shawn Grischkowsky of Brick House Recovery said surviving an overdose put him on a path to try and help others before it’s too late. His greatest hope is that he and other addiction recovery advocates can someday work themselves out of a job.   

“If you’re in that place of sadness, we weep with you. If you are doing better, put your arm around your neighbor,” Grischkowsky said. 

A digital fentanyl memorial wall is located at https://208recovery.org/foa-memorial-wall.

    A little girl kisses the picture of a loved one who lost their life to overdose Sunday at Independence Point.

  

    A candlelight vigil assembled Sunday at Independence Point to remember those who passed away due to drug overdoses.
  

    People pass on flames from lit candles during a vigil for overdose deaths at Independence Point. Sunday was International Overdose Awareness Day.
  

    People pass on flames from lit candles during a vigil for overdose deaths at Independence Point. Sunday was International Overdose Awareness Day.
  

    A man looks at the pictures of people who passed away due to overdose Sunday before a candlelight vigil held to remember them.