Jackson County has received a grant from Dogwood Health Trust to create a substance abuse recovery planning program over a two-year period. 

The immediate grief of having to bury a child seems insurmountable, and the lifetime of what-ifs seem like enough to drag a person to unimaginable depths.

But what for most is horrific speculation is a reality for others. John Chapman Sr. knows.

The faces of more than 2,000 overdose victims – many from North Carolina, and some from Haywood County – will be on display this coming Monday, in commemoration of International Overdose Day.

Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of those interviewed for this story. 

Five miles down an Appalachian dirt road 45 minutes from nowhere is where Daphne Laurel was raised, right in the heart of the sparsely populated mountainous region hit hardest by the ongoing opioid crisis. 

After a routine surgery, Haywood County native Clayton Suggs ended up hooked on opioids until on the first day alone in his new apartment after a year of sobriety, his addiction eventually cost him his life. 

It was finally moving day, and that empty little Greensboro apartment must have seemed like a mansion to 29-year-old Clayton Suggs. 

Fitting, the lack of furnishings; the whole thing was a blank slate, a new start.