Cassidy Levine
Loss of fiancé, Dylan, to Fentanyl Poisoning
Hi Cassidy, what’s your story?
My name is Cassidy, I’m 30 years old and I’m from Montreal, Canada. I’m a personal trainer, part-time digital marketer, and (major) dog lover. I worked in digital marketing full-time in Toronto for six years after graduating from University, and recently moved back to Montreal where I decided to make a pretty drastic career change into personal training. While I’m grateful for my experience in the corporate world, I never felt like it was where I was meant to be.
After being impacted by a mass layoff at my company last January (and of course, some other traumatic life events), I decided this was my chance to make a real change. I was back in Montreal at my parents’ house, just trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other again, and it was the only thing that felt right at that moment. Strength training is something that I’ve always prioritized and loved, and has recently become even more important to me throughout my grief journey. It’s the only thing I’ve found that gets me out of my head and into my body for a brief moment of the day. For me, it’s not just about results; it’s about prioritizing my health and how it makes my body and my mind feel. All I want to do is help others find joy in it the way that I do.
The career change has been both scary and exciting, and a huge lifestyle change that I’m still adjusting to, but I’m so thankful for everyone who has given me a chance and supported me throughout this journey. It’s crazy that, if you asked me this same question two years ago, my answer would’ve looked a lot different than it does today.
What was life like before the death of your fiancé, Dylan?
In hindsight, life was as simple as it could get. Dylan and I had recently moved into a new apartment in Toronto. Since we had both been working remotely, we moved outside of downtown to have more space and a nicer area to walk around and enjoy the beach. We took advantage of our mornings together before getting to work, usually taking our dog for a walk to our favourite neighbourhood coffee shop. Our new place was close by to my sister and her wife, so we were finally getting to spend more time with them. It was really starting to feel like home.
Dylan and I also did a lot of traveling whenever we had the chance. The last trip we took was a road trip down to South Carolina. We rented a place on the beach to work remotely for a month and visited different cities on the weekends.
Two weeks before Dylan died, he planned a romantic weekend in the Ontario wine region and that’s where he got down on one knee. We had just started looking into wedding venues in Italy and were excited to finally bring our families together and give them the chance to get to know each other. Everything was coming together, and we were excited about the life we were starting to build together.
You shared with me that your fiancé died from fentanyl poisoning. Are you comfortable sharing more?
On July 15th, 2022, Dylan was at an event with his law firm in Detroit. I hadn’t spoken to him much over the two days he was there. It was a Friday night, and he was supposed to fly home the next day, just in time for the small engagement party that my sister was planning for us in her backyard. The last time we had spoken was earlier that day, when he messaged me to tell me that the airline put him on standby for his flight home, and he was worried he wouldn’t get on the flight.
Later that night, I got a call from Dylan’s friend letting me know that Dylan had done cocaine in the hotel room and he had a bad reaction. The ambulance was there but “they said he’ll be fine.” At this point, of course, I was in a panic, but the idea of Dylan dying was not even a possibility in my mind. The thoughts running through my head were more like: “How could he be so stupid? Is he going to make it home for the engagement party? Should I get in the car and drive to Detroit right now? Will all his coworkers find out what happened? Will he lose his job?”
I called my friend, and she stayed on the phone with me and kept me distracted for about an hour until we heard another update. We even started going through some outfit options for the engagement party the next day. I finally called Dylan’s friend back, and all I remember were the words “I don’t know what to tell you, Cass.”
I don’t even know how to describe how I felt at that moment. It was a complete out of body experience. I could literally see myself curled up on the floor next to my bed, unable to comprehend what I was hearing. I hung up the phone and called Dylan’s mom in a panic to tell her what happened, before I even truly understood what was going on. I almost laughed at myself after saying it out loud, because it sounded completely absurd. Within minutes, my sister and sister-in-law were at my house, and the rest is…very much a blur.
From what we understand, Dylan’s heart stopped pretty instantly after ingesting it. The ambulance came and they were able to get his heart going again, but he didn’t last more than a few minutes in the hospital, because they weren’t able to clear his airways. It took about six months for us to finally get the toxicology report, but the answer was clear: there was no trace of cocaine in his blood, only fentanyl.
What was his relationship with drugs before this (again, only if you are comfortable speaking about this)?
He was a recreational user. Every once in a while he would enjoy a night out and indulge, but he never did cocaine when I was around. He was always open and honest with me about it, so when he did it on occasion, I was just glad that he wasn’t hiding it from me, even though he knew I wasn’t thrilled about it. As far as I know, he wasn’t usually the one to seek it out, but if the opportunity came up he wouldn’t shy away from it.
What was life like in the immediate days after his death?
The only way I can describe it is complete numbness. I felt detached, like somehow my body was still functioning but I had no control over it. As exhausted as I was, I lay awake all night, unable to keep my eyes shut. As hungry as I was, my body rejected any food as soon as I took one bite. Because I wasn’t there to witness Dylan’s death, I was waiting for someone to call me and tell me this was all a big mistake. I was waiting for him to come home so I could tell him about all of the craziness that I’d been through. There’s no way this could be real. This is only the kind of thing that happens to other people, not to me.
Within hours of hearing the news, my parents made their way to Toronto, and just one day later, we all drove 15 hours to Thunder Bay where Dylan’s family lives. It’s like we were on autopilot and couldn’t sit still until we were all together. We ended up spending almost two weeks there while we waited for the autopsy and toxicology exams to be done and finally get his body to Thunder Bay to have a funeral.
Once all that was over, I headed back to Montreal to stay with my parents and figure out what was next. I had a relatively new apartment in Toronto that I didn’t feel like I could return to. I had all of Dylan’s clothes in his closet that I was nowhere near ready to touch. I had a one-year-old dog that I wasn’t planning on caring for on my own.
In the moment, I think my way of coping was: let me get all of the hard stuff over with right away so that I can “move on” from this as quickly as possible. I need to pack everything up, get rid of my apartment, delete his social media accounts, I need to close our shared bank account, and remove him from our car insurance policy. I need to completely remove myself from this life and start over. The quicker I get all of these things done, the quicker the pain will go away. (Spoiler alert: that’s not how grief works.)
What was a specific low point or struggle you experienced?
Looking back on it now, I feel like I never had the opportunity to fully fall apart. I didn’t get the chance to just lay in bed for days/weeks and cry my heart out. To sit with my pain and grieve the way I needed to grieve. Within 24 hours of hearing the news, I packed up a bag and drove to Thunder Bay, where I was constantly surrounded by people - a lot of whom I was meeting for the first time. They weren’t my people. Though I didn’t want to be anywhere else but there, with Dylan’s family and friends, I think I felt like I had to put on a brave face and be there to support them in that moment.
As soon as I got back home, I got busy packing up my apartment and moving my stuff into storage. I went back to Montreal to stay with my parents and returned to work by September. I was in 100% survival mode. Rather than taking the time to grieve, all I was focused on was how I was going to survive one day to the next.
How did you manage to find joy in those low moments?
Although it was hard to be away from home and my own community, being around Dylan’s friends and family in Thunder Bay was the only place I wanted to be. We sat around and shared stories about him for those two weeks, and it’s the only part I miss from those early days of grief. We laughed, we cried, we watched videos, and looked through all of his childhood photo albums. It was heartwarming to see how many people showed up for Dylan and his family, and to see the impact he had on so many people’s lives. He had already been living away from home for 10+ years, but it’s clear that he left a mark on each and every person that he crossed paths with. I had everyone from his elementary and high school teachers, guidance counselors, and coworkers coming up to me, telling me stories about Dylan and how special he was.
No matter how painful that time was, reminiscing together and hearing all the stories brought me so much joy. It gave me some brief moments of relief and laughter, but more importantly, made me feel so lucky to have known him and had those three years together, even though I wish I could’ve had 100 more.
How do you live life differently from before the loss (if at all)? Has your attitude about life shifted? Any unexpected changes?
Everything about me has changed. I’m not the same person I was, and I don’t think I’ll ever be that person again. My attitude about life has shifted in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined.
I used to be a planner and valued stability more than anything. Now, the thought of planning anything in advance just seems pointless. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Especially in these (still) early days of grief, my brain can only process so many things at once. How can I think about what I’ll be doing next month when I have to worry about getting through today? Since I started my new career in fitness, I’ve had several people ask me what my “end goal” is, or the famous, “Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?” How am I supposed to know what the world will be like in 5 years? I’m just trying to do what makes me happy right now, and that’s all I can handle for the moment.
I’ve also become more aware of the fact that everyone is going through something. I try my best not to judge people or take offense too quickly anymore because we really never know what others may be going through. My ability to empathize with others has grown, to the extent that I can quite literally feel other people’s pain in my body. Every time I hear about another tragic death, whether I knew them personally or they’re a complete stranger, it feels like a punch in the gut. That painful stab that I felt when I learned I had lost Dylan forever; the pain that I quickly numbed away. A common thing people say to a griever is “I can’t imagine what you’re going through”, but now I can imagine. I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, because your grief is different from mine, but I can imagine it and all I want to do is make your pain go away. I see war and tragedies happening around the world, and those death tolls are no longer just a number to me. Each one of those deaths is an entire world that is lost, no matter who they are or what “side” they’re on.
Finally, I think the biggest shift I’ve noticed is, for the first time, I’ve become solely focused on myself and what makes me happy. I’m doing everything I can to build a new life that feels authentic to me, and not what I think will please others. I stopped settling for things that don’t serve me well, because I suddenly feel like I have no more time to waste. I’m also realizing that my happiness can’t be dependent on anyone else but myself. I can’t put all my focus on looking for that perfect person in order to feel whole again, because people will come in and out of our lives, and we have no control over it. I need to do what feels right for me, because that’s the only thing I can control.
Fentanyl poisoning is a stigmatized loss that is often misunderstood and unfortunately becoming more common. How has your widowhood experience been different from others who maybe have a more “accepted” death?
I think it’s been different in the sense that there’s a lot more shame and judgment associated with Dylan’s death. When people ask me how he died, I freeze up every single time. I don’t feel like it’s a story I can sum up in just one or two words because for some reason I feel that it requires more of an explanation. When people hear “overdose”, they make immediate assumptions about Dylan, especially if they didn’t know him. Especially in the case of fentanyl poisoning, regardless of whether or not someone is an addict, there’s immediate blame placed on the person, rather than seeing them as a victim.
I even fell into this trap, and sometimes still do. For so long, I was angry at Dylan for being reckless. In my mind, he made a selfish decision and didn’t think about the impact it could have on me or his family. One of the friends he was with that night opted out because he had a wife and newborn baby at home. Why didn’t Dylan think this way about me? No matter how much I try not to, I always go back to putting the blame on him. But this wasn’t a choice Dylan made. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t even see that as a possible consequence of his actions. He was just living in the moment and wanted to have a good time - it was as simple as that. Whether he was an addict or not, he was given something that he was unaware of. He was poisoned. In my mind, it’s not an “overdose,” it’s murder.
What do you want others to know about grief?
Grief is extremely lonely. No matter how many of us are grieving the loss of Dylan, we are all grieving in different ways and have our own secondary losses. Not only did I lose my fiancé and life partner, I lost my best friend, my travel partner, my future, my home, my life in Toronto, and everything I knew to be true up until this point. I lost my ability to relate to my friends, most of whom are getting married, buying houses, and starting families of their own. I’ve lost the ability to plan too far ahead into the future, because nothing in life feels certain anymore.
Grief is not just the pain of losing the person we love. It’s so much more than that. Grief is extremely disorienting. One day I had a partner, a home, and a future that seemed somewhat clear and predictable. The next day, it felt like I was displaced into this new reality that I had no idea how to navigate. Not only did I lose Dylan, but I lost a part of myself too. I suddenly didn’t know who I was anymore or what I wanted in life. It felt like I’d been given this new knowledge about life that I wish I didn’t have. A new understanding of how fragile life is, and how quickly I can lose any of my loved ones at any moment. An understanding that these things don’t just happen to other people, they can happen to me too. It already has, and it can just as likely happen again.
My grief journey has been a constant battle between trying to distract myself and numb the pain, while also doing as much as I can to stay connected to Dylan. The more I throw myself into work and keep busy, the more guilt I have for feeling further and further away from him and our life together in Toronto. As I’ve been settling into this new life, I have this constant fear that I’ll forget our memories, what he was like, or even what his voice sounded like. I always try to think about what Dylan would think in certain situations, how he would react, or what advice he would give, and as time goes on, I’m finding it a lot harder to do that. Sometimes I even feel like that life never even existed at all, like it was this perfect dream that I made up in my head.
The most surprising thing to me about grief has been the physical impact it’s had on my body. I’ve never experienced this level of fatigue in my life. From day one, everything has become so much more difficult than it used to be - getting out of bed in the morning, focusing on any task, making even the smallest decisions, answering text messages, making small talk with strangers, or even friends. I can rarely make it through a day without taking a nap. It’s like I’m constantly carrying this load that makes everything feel so much heavier than before. Like my body is so focused on surviving, that everything else just feels like it’s too much to handle. It’s like I have this never-ending brain fog that won’t clear. I suddenly have to write everything down in my calendar and set reminders, otherwise I’ll forget. And I don’t just mean my work schedule and appointments. I mean even the smallest of things, like “take out the garbage”, “eat breakfast”, and “walk the dog”. I’ve even gone to the point of setting reminders for what to eat for each meal the next day, just in case I forget what food I prepared. I also forget where I live sometimes, and have driven way past my house several times. Once I learned the term “grief brain”, I understood that I, in fact, am not losing my mind and this is all just a common response to a traumatic loss.
How can a person best be there to support a loved one who is grieving? How about specifically someone who lost a loved one to a more stigmatized loss?
Don’t stop showing up. Don’t give up on us. Don’t take anything personally. Your loved ones who are grieving may not have the energy to answer your calls all the time or respond to “How are you doing?” (to this day, I still struggle to answer that question), but that doesn’t mean they’re not appreciative of it. It can be overwhelming, and sometimes we just don’t have the energy, but just knowing that people are still thinking of us, even a year or more later, can make us feel so much less alone.
One of the things I’ve come to realize is that people are extremely uncomfortable around the topic of grief and death. This is not a criticism, because I was definitely one of these people before I had any experience with it. In the earlier days, I noticed I would hide my experience when meeting new people, because I was afraid of putting them in an uncomfortable position. New acquaintances or clients would often ask why I moved back to Montreal, or if I was single or married, and I would often respond with a lie, or simply, “It’s a long story”. In my mind, they were just making small talk and didn’t want to hear the real answer. The real answer would shock them and put them in a position where they would have no idea how to respond.
As time goes on, I’ve become a lot more open about it, but most people react by getting flustered and quickly changing the subject. My biggest piece of advice: if someone chooses to open up to you about their grief, don’t dismiss them. There is nothing that will make them feel more alienated than saying “Oh sorry, we don’t have to talk about it,” and then quickly changing the subject. If you feel like you’d be overstepping by asking how they died, ask them about their person instead. What was their name? What were they like? What did you love about them?
This brings me to the most important point. Don’t be afraid to talk about our loved ones who died. Don’t be afraid to bring up Dylan’s name because you don’t want to ruin my day. Dylan is on my mind every minute of every day, so bringing him up won’t remind me of anything. If anything, it shows me that you’re thinking about him too and I’m not alone in this. It reinforces that he hasn’t been forgotten, especially when it feels like everyone else around me has moved on.
What brings you joy now?
A little while ago, a friend asked me, “When was the last time you truly enjoyed yourself?”, and my inability to answer that question really shook me. I couldn’t think of one moment since Dylan died that I experienced true joy, without the looming sadness or guilt that Dylan wasn’t there to experience it with me. I did a lot of traveling in my early days of grief, which used to bring me the most joy, but has now been tainted by the fact that I’ll never get to travel with him again.
When I think about joy today, it’s more about those brief moments of relief. The moments of feeling accomplished. The moments of feeling like I’m finally doing what I love. The moments of laughing so hard the tears come streaming down my face. Even though those moments are followed by “I wish I could call Dylan and tell him what happened”, the more of those moments I have, the more hope I have that one day it’ll get easier. That one day it’ll all be a bit more manageable.
When Dylan died, one of my biggest concerns was that I had become so dependent on him that I wouldn’t be able to get through life without him. Now, every little thing I accomplish on my own brings me the most joy. From the smallest things, like dealing with car issues, to bigger things, like making a complete career change, the sense of accomplishment makes me feel like, “All alright, I got this. If I’ve made it this far, I could do anything.”
Anything else you’d like readers to know?
I wrote this, not only because it was healing for me, but because I feel like it’s important for Dylan’s story to be shared. Dylan grew up in an amazing home, with a loving family, and had a great head on his shoulders. He was extremely motivated and career-oriented, while also making time to have fun and enjoy the life he had built for himself. No one would have ever thought that this would be his fate. No one is safe from fentanyl poisoning, no matter how often they’re using drugs, or who they are getting them from.
And finally, I want people to remember Dylan for who he was, rather than his tragic death. Dylan was always the wise and gentle soul in the room, and at the same time, the life of the party wherever he went. He was the one that everyone went to for advice, and he always put others before himself. He worked extremely hard, not only to live the lifestyle that he wanted (and to buy lots of suits), but to ensure that he could provide for me and our future family, as well as give back to his parents who provided him with an upbringing he was so grateful for. No matter how hard he worked, he would never let stress interfere with him having a good time. Somehow, he found a way to pretend like nothing else mattered but having a good time when he was out with family or friends.
And I can’t fail to mention he was a huge soccer fan. If he wasn’t playing soccer, he was watching soccer, reading about soccer, or talking about soccer with his dad or brother back home. He also had this never-ending curiosity that led him to become a human encyclopedia. Want to know the population of Alaska? Just ask Dylan. Need a list of all the past Prime Ministers in the history of Canada? Dylan’s your guy. He was also stubborn; a true lawyer at heart. Any discussion with him would turn into a debate, and his organized, fact-based arguments were usually impossible to dispute.
Most of all, Dylan had this incredible sense of confidence that I admired more than anything. He wasn’t concerned about what others thought of him, and he never strayed from who he was. He wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion, even though he knew it wasn’t always what people wanted to hear. And of course, he was also never afraid to break out into his signature moves on the dance floor. He is an inspiration to all of us, and I’ll never take the time I had with him for granted.
Want to know more about Cassidy and her story? Follow her on Instagram @cassjlevine.