Ben Was Here

Benjamin Stevenson, January 1987- March 2022

This story is based on interviews with Ben’s twin sister Sarah and my son-in-law, Graeme. Ben died exactly two years after my daughter Sophie. My daughter Emma was unable to accompany Graeme to the funeral in Vancouver because she was too far along in her pregnancy with twins. My twin granddaughters were given the middle names Sophie and Benjamin.

Ben and his twin sister Sarah were raised in the affluent Dunbar neighbourhood of Vancouver. Their parents grew up in Trail, BC and got together when they were quite young. Their mum was one of ten kids in a proud Italian family, while their dad was an only child. As a result, their mum wanted fewer kids, so she could have a close relationship with each one, and their dad wanted more than one so they’d have a playmate. Their first child was born with a heart defect and died at seven months. The couple needed time to grieve, and then had some difficulty with fertility. When the twins came along, the entire extended family was thrilled.

The babies almost had different birthdays, as Sarah arrived shortly before midnight, eyes open and eager to greet the world. Ben had to be coaxed. Family lore includes the story of their conception - their parents were travelling that particularly month and diligently engaging in baby-making whether on a nice plush bed or a mat on someone’s floor. Their efforts paid off.

Both twins were high achievers, excelling in school, sports and music. Sarah describes their childhood in glowing terms. The two of them got along well and had close friends and a rich connection to their mum’s huge family. They spent time at an off-grid cabin where they had lots of freedom to roam. At the same time, there were high expectations placed on them, but Sarah says they thrived in this environment. Their parents were very loving, both with their kids and with each other.

Graeme remembers meeting Ben in grade one and being thrilled that this fun, athletic kid also had a deeply nerdy side and would happily spend hours playing Lego with him. In grade three, Ben moved on to a gifted class, but they stayed friends, bonding over Star Wars and video games, and were reunited in grade nine. Graeme says,

In high school, mystery of mysteries, he continued to hang out with me and my other unpopular friends. He was the best player on a very bad rugby team. He was an excellent soccer player. He downhill skied. He never sought the limelight but begrudgingly played piano and sang in our band, and joined the theatre club with us to take part in an awful production of The Crucible. We all had long hair but he was the only one who could pull it off.

Ben, Graeme and their crew had marvelous adventures riding around on their bikes with detours to the McDonald’s drive-thru, eating Sour Patch Kids at the movies until their mouths were raw, and learning to sail - or more often flip - tiny boats at Jericho Beach.

Ben and Sarah went through a huge upheaval when they were ten. Their mother got cancer and died two years later. After her diagnosis, she devoted the time she had to supporting her children. Sarah had matured quite early, and was able to fully engage in those final months of mother-daughter talks, and even to start the grieving process with her mum to guide her. Ben wasn’t quite in the same emotional place, and was slower to process what happened. Both kids remained high functioning, and watched their father take care of all the pragmatic responsibilities of family life. But the effects of their loss naturally lingered.

Their dad John moved on soon afterwards, remarrying after six months. It was too soon for the twins, and their grief was compounded when, three years later, the family home was torn down to build a bigger one that would accommodate their merged family, including two step-children, a few years younger than the twins. He sold the beloved family cabin to help finance this undertaking. He was trying to do right by everyone, and create an investment for the children’s future, but Ben and Sarah felt upended, further removed from the memories and places that anchored them.

Ben went to UBC with members of his childhood cohort. Graeme told this story at his funeral:

In our second year of university, Ben took the first semester off to take up smoking, skateboarding, and working at American Apparel. He was really cool. That year he got very excited for Halloween, and he worked on his costume for weeks.

Because Ben took up skateboarding, I tried to as well. I was not good. So I hop on my skateboard with a beer bottle in hand, only to make it about a half-block before I fly off and manage to fall onto the beer bottle, shattering it with my arm. I show up and someone’s dad opens the door. “I need help,” I say, bleeding all over the porch. All he says is, “Have you been drinking?”

But then Ben appears, in the most amazing Wolverine costume you can possibly imagine. Completely homemade with pieces cribbed from the backroom of the American Apparel on Granville. Ben takes charge. There is no question of missing the party. Dressed as Wolverine, he takes me in my bloodied spotted owl costume to Shoppers Drug Mart, and grabs first aid supplies. We get to the party and he bandages me up in the bathroom. And then we have a great evening.

The next morning, I go to the hospital. The doctor who finally sees me says, “It’s too late for stitches, you’ll have these scars for life. But whoever bandaged these wounds did a hell of a job.” I’m so thankful for these scars.

Ben got into cannabis as a young teen. Towards the end of his undergrad degree, everything came to a head. He had a painful break-up and went travelling, but was clearly not himself. He seemed to have lost his footing. Sarah went through a shake-up in her twenties as well - albeit a healthier one - rejecting some of the pressures and priorities she’d grown up with and taking time to explore alternative ways of living before landing on a new career in Haida Gwaii.

Ben found his way back to university, starting a Master’s and doing meaningful work in health, including AIDS research, but he couldn’t quite find a comfortable fit anywhere. Being the smartest one in most rooms, he didn’t always take kindly to being supervised. One of his friends coined the term “Bensplaining” to describe his tendency to interject with more complete or correct information during conversations.

Ben loved being around people and partied hard. He pushed boundaries and was up for anything. Frequent visits to the emergency room ensued. His roommate raised the alarm about Ben’s cocaine use, and the family intervened to help, but his drug dependence ultimately became more dangerous. He started using intravenously and turned to fentanyl. Ben’s behaviour could be erratic and manic, but it was hard to know whether the underlying cause was addiction or a different mental illness.

For more than ten years, Ben lived in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He built meaningful connections, working as a peer researcher for the Ribbon Community (formerly AIDS Vancouver) and organizations involved in harm reduction. A video called What’s in My Drugs, produced by the BC Centre on Substance Use is dedicated, “In loving memory of Ben Stevenson.”

He always welcomed communication with his family and friends, though they often had to go look for him on the streets. There were get-togethers for birthdays and holidays. John and Catherine, Ben’s step-mom, checked up on him regularly, bringing care packages and going for coffee dates, playing frisbee golf, or strolling the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood with him. It was harder for some family members than others to accept Ben’s situation. Like many parents, John held onto the hope that he would get better and fulfil the hopes he’d always had for his son.

Graeme left Vancouver after his undergrad degree but returned in 2015 and was glad to be near Ben again. They saw each other often, even when Ben’s deteriorating health made things rocky. Reflecting on who Ben was and what he meant to his longtime friends, Graeme says,

He had the kindest, gentlest, most beautiful soul. He had this incredible magnetism - a combination of joie de vivre and sweet tenderness. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was that even when he was hurting so badly, he was always driven by his desire to help others. He was a brother to me, and I loved him very much.

Sarah worked hard to understand Ben’s world and accept the reality of her brother’s life, but was also acutely aware that there is often only one exit from fentanyl. As had been the case with her mother, Sarah had some capacity to grieve in advance of Ben’s death. After Ben died, she shed the relationships and patterns that didn’t serve her, as so many of us do after a traumatic loss. There can be a kind of bitter beauty in that process, and even a sense of gratitude towards the person whose absence quite starkly clarifies what matters most.