the pandemic arrived and proved too painful for some taylor and her son quarantined together at her home in bemidji a city of 15000 people hed started abusing pills as a teenager when he got a prescription after having surgery for an infected finger then consumed by the madness of addiction he would smoke anything methamphetamine heroin fentanyl that might quiet his anxiety and depression the months of isolation dragged on and he said it seemed like the pandemic would never end he told her he felt like a bum he just gave up she said all around them people were dying on the white earth reservation ambulance calls for overdoses tripled they posted big red signs in gas stations and tribal buildings overdose alert the number of overdoses the regional drug task force investigated skyrocketed from 20 in 2019 to 88 last year said joe kleszyk its commander fifteen of those were fatal triple the year before this year theres been 148 overdoses and 24 of those victims died the vast majority were native american when the american government forced native americans off their land it signed treaties with tribes promising to provide for them necessities like health care the dead from addiction prove its never kept its word said minnesota sen tina smith indian health care has been underfunded for years the national average for health care spending is just over 11000 per person but tribal health systems receive about a third of that and urban indian groups even less according to the national council of urban indian health covid19 added another blow to this already stressed system smith introduced a bill this summer that would usher 200 million in grants to indian organizations to bolster mental health and addiction treatment it is stalled in congress im sick of telling people that their kids are dead kleszyk said in january rachel taylors heart began aching it was like my heart knew before i did she said my heart was broken four days before he even died on january 11 she opened his bedroom door his skin was purple and ice cold come back my baby come back she screamed the toxicology report said that hed died of a combination of alprazolam the drug in xanax and fentanyl at first she put his ashes in an urn but it was sharp metal a friend made the buckskin bag that she could hug the anniversary of his death is approaching on jan 11 and it is customary in her culture to return him to nature after a year of grieving but every morning she kisses his bag hed always loved to laugh so taylor teases it keep an eye on the cat shell say then she tells the cat to keep an eye on him the medicine man says i have to let him go back to the earth she said but i dont think im going to be able to do that he left me too soon