Dallas woman brings conversations on fentanyl to the Hispanic community’s doorsteps

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of as-told-to accounts for The Dallas Morning News’ “Deadly Fake” project on the fentanyl crisis. Myrna Méndez is the founder of Comadres Unidas de Dallas y Más, a group that connects Hispanic communities in Dallas with resources and information on several topics including fentanyl.

My brother died after overdosing on cocaine two days after his birthday.

He turned 33 on a Monday. He was at my parents’ house. I was in such a rush to see him that I didn’t stop to buy him a cake. We celebrated his birthday and he died two days later.

My sister called to tell me, but I said, “No, I just saw him on Monday.”

He used drugs. We didn’t know when it started.

He left behind his children. It destroyed an entire family. We lost a brother, friend, husband and father. It was heartbreaking to see my nephew raise his hands at the sky, asking for his dad. He was just 3 years old.

It’s been more than 30 years since my brother’s death. Then whispers of fentanyl overdoses began to spread in Dallas. I knew I had to do what no one did for us, for my brother.

I wanted someone to listen. I wanted to make sure people could say, “Someone talked to me about this. Someone tried to raise awareness.”

I knew I couldn’t stay quiet this time. I didn’t want other families to suffer as mine had.

Three years ago, I recruited a group of women volunteers and created Comadres Unidas de Dallas y Más. I wanted to educate the Hispanic community about different topics. Topics families might not be comfortable talking about.

We all come from different places and language can stand between learning. Knowing.

We’ve since connected families with resources and information in Spanish about labor exploitation, domestic violence and autism, for example.

When we started hearing about fentanyl, we didn’t even know what it was.

Toward the end of last year, we started organizing educational meetings about fentanyl at schools. We invited Drug Enforcement Administration agents and spread information by livestreaming on Facebook.

I knew that wasn’t enough. After all, fentanyl was still relatively unheard of at the time. It was foreign. No one knew how lethal it is and how it can be found laced in fake prescription pills.

I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of people who were tuning in, so we started knocking on doors earlier this year. Even if people were not looking for us, we’d meet them right at their doorsteps.

We knocked in Carrollton. Farmers Branch. Pleasant Grove. Throughout North Dallas. It was cold, but that didn’t stop us. Just like lack of money hasn’t stopped us. I knocked on 80 doors. All together we probably knocked on more than 400.

But there was a home we did not get to in time. My worst fear was right in front of me.

While knocking, we noticed about six police cars parked nearby. I approached the home to figure out what had happened.

I asked a woman nearby if she’d overheard anything. She didn’t answer, so I just handed her one of our flyers. The woman began to weep.

Her brother, who was only 16 years old, had just died after experiencing an overdose. His body was still upstairs. The family said first responders suspected it was related to fentanyl.

I saw the fear in her face. That family had been destroyed.

They told me they had thought the boy was only drunk the night before. They carried him back to his bed twice after he kept getting up and tripping. When his mother went to his room to wake him up the next day, he was dead.

“You’re too late,” the family told me.

All I could think was, “If only we had met them just a day earlier. Maybe he’d still be alive. If only they knew the signs of an overdose. Maybe this could have been avoided.”

When we buried my brother, my siblings and I brushed off our relatives’ questions about what had happened to him. We even hid the truth from my own parents for a while. My mom never found out, she only saw his empty bed.

“It was an accident,” we repeated over and over while a mariachi band played “El Caballo Blanco” by José Alfredo Jiménez.

He was buried in México, one of his last wishes.

It was 1989. Drugs were then and continue to be a taboo subject among Hispanic families. Many avoid it like spoiled milk. Parents warn their children, but that’s as far as they go.

We cannot live ignorantly thinking drugs will not attempt to touch our lives. I cannot bear to see the same pain I saw on the faces of my siblings, my nephews and my sister-in-law when my brother died.

There’s still a lot to do. Our work is not over.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.