There was a tattoo on Dylan Fuh’s arms…
“Every saint has a past,
every sinner has a future.”
Dylan embraced these words by St. Augustine, for he was inspired by a firm belief in the future and in the certainty of redemption.
On June 5, 2017, Dylan passed away from an overdose after a long-term battle that began when he was 14 with a near-death ATV accident and 2 months of heavy opioid prescriptions. There was no taper. Suddenly, we were asking the haunting question- “What’s wrong with you?” Dylan was my only child. His remarkable and genuine father passed away in an alcohol-related snowmobile accident just prior to Dylan’s birth.
Amidst their struggles, both were so much more than any pain that bound them in the grips of addiction. Lights that radiated brilliance in and through the lives of those fortunate enough to know them. Natural athletes with paralleled passions drawn to the needs of adolescents, the elderly and God’s smallest creatures. Compassionate. Humble.
Both were insightful, beyond generous with a full of wit! 2 men whose souls danced in rhythm without ever having met. Father and son.
One night, while reading my Bible, I came across a Scripture “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, the saving of many lives. ” This passage inspired the establishment of the David Dylan Foundation.
Since our openness about Dylan’s battle and our efforts to squash the stigma of shame by separating the disease from humanness, we have encountered hundreds of families and individuals looking for solutions. The statistics are staggering. It is despair that they battle daily, often with little hope that their loved one will return to them.
Although we are now faced with the finality of Dylan’s physical existence, we must also remember that we are all spiritual beings, deeply woven into the fabric of our existence as a sense of our duality: spirit and flesh, struggle and hope, despair and joy, weakness and strength. Let our faith in a spiritual life heal the wounds of David and Dylan’s passing. Let us rejoice in the knowledge that through the loss, others might live.
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