Kate Morovich had a rude awakening to the opioid crisis in the United States.
After one of her close friends lost her 27-year-old daughter to addiction approximately five years ago, Morovich helped her friend throughout the funeral process, offering to help with hair and makeup for her friend’s late daughter, Jayme, in preparation for the funeral.
Morovich went as a favor, offering to help a close friend. Having done Jayme’s hair and makeup in the past for proms and other events, this time was clearly different. Shortly after the service, the funeral home offered her a job due to her skills, meaning she would airbrush bodies and do hair and makeup for those being prepared at funeral homes.
“I honestly thought I would be doing all older people,” said Morovich. “That’s what I assumed back then, I thought Jayme’s [instance] was rare.”
Morovich starting work at the funeral home in Philadelphia, and quickly had her expectations shattered when, to her surprise, young man after young man and young woman after young woman were brought to her table for hair and makeup due to one reason: addiction.
“It was nothing but one overdose after another. That was basically my eye-opener … I didn’t grow up with anyone that was addicted to heroin, I didn’t have any friends that were doing pills,” said Morovich. “I thought it was something from the ’60s, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
After watching the constant shuffle of parents come to the funeral home to grieve over another life cut short due to addiction, Morovich started doing her own research into how addiction might be starting for these young kids.
“I feel like Jayme passing away and bringing me to the funeral home – I was a hair dresser for 20-plus years before that – I was brought there for more than to do Jayme’s hair,” said Morovich.
And that’s where the story brings Morovich, standing in an empty cafeteria at Berlin Community School Monday, May 13. Among her stand her husband, the school’s interim acting superintendent and five police officers between Voorhees Township and Berlin Borough.
She’s scheduled to give a presentation on her experiences and research through her nonprofit “Breathe for Jayme,” which she hopes to use to educate parents and teens about the effect of opioids in the hopes that parents can see the signs early on.
However, no parents showed up.
“I think parents are scared to know and they’re probably scared to even ask,” Morovich said. “I would be scared too. But parents need to hear what other parents are actually going through. In my experience, these aren’t troubled kids. They’re good kids coming from good families.”
Morovich hopes to be able to start a conversation within families about drug abuse and opioids, and their dangers and effects. In reality, parents can often believe they’re doing a good job raising their kids and can be hesitant to believe their kids might one day try heroin, expired prescription pills or opioids.
“Parents need to be educated and kids needs need to be educated,” said Morovich. “No matter how perfect your child looks in front of you, that’s not going to change peer pressure. For many kids, in their mind they don’t think pills are as bad as drinking or smoking pot.”
