My granddaughter was orphaned by the opioid epidemic. She’s one of thousands.

Five years ago, I became one of the estimated three million grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Only I belong to a particular subsection of that group: My granddaughter is one of the growing number of what I call “opioid orphans.”

My daughter was a good kid. When she became a teenager, she did typical teenager things to rebel — smoked a bit of pot, acted out a bit, nothing major. Her mother and I did the typical parent things in response — we set limits, sometimes grounded her, and so on. When she turned 18, while still in high school, she started spending time with a 30-year-old man she didn’t tell us about. He had a back injury and had a regular supply of prescription opioids for the pain. He gave them to my daughter as a way to court her. After their daughter was born, he used them to control her, and she slid into addiction.

When she realized that she had developed opioid use disorder, she finally broke free of the father (who is now in prison) and began her struggle to break her addiction. Over the course of almost 10 years, she went through the painful and difficult detox and withdrawal process four times. The first time, she stayed off opioids for several years, but in each instance, her rehabilitation ultimately failed. Her mother and I tried everything we could to help her, but we were grasping in the dark.

This was not long ago, but society still viewed addiction as a moral failure, rather than a deadly disease that is highly resistant to help.

Our granddaughter would sometimes live with her grandmother or me, and other times with her mom. When with her mom, they generally lived in dangerous parts of the city. Once, when she was just 5 years old and watching cartoons on a Saturday morning, their neighbor burst into their living room, bleeding and crying for help. Her husband was close behind, wielding a knife. No child should experience that.

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My daughter believed that if she only took opioids as pills, and never injected them, she would be safe from overdose. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. She died in 2017, when her daughter was 10 years old.

My granddaughter was living with her grandmother when she learned her mother had died. She cried briefly, then forced aside the lingering questions and overwhelming pain and loneliness associated with this tragedy. She somehow tucked those feelings away, like she did after every other trauma she has experienced. She is 15 now.

Her grandmother and I are divorced. Her grandmother has legal custody, but we share the same love all grandparents feel for their grandchildren, and both care for her as if she were our child. We are now in our 60s, and we had not anticipated our granddaughter’s needs in our lifetime savings plans. I am disabled, but I help as much as I can. My daughter didn’t work much because of her opioid use disorder, so her Social Security survivor benefit is helpful but limited. Though only 15, our granddaughter works part-time and takes responsibility for many of her personal expenses. Still, she needs help and resources that we can’t always provide.

She needs help and resources that we can’t always provide.

My granddaughter is a wonderful child, kind, hardworking, and really smart. But there is so much she is up against. She needs therapy to help her deal with all the trauma she has experienced in her short life. She needs money for basic living expenses, and soon, for college.

Nearly three million people living in the U.S. are struggling with opioid use disorder. Nearly 100,000 people die of a drug overdose every year; most of those deaths are related to opioids. Pennsylvania is one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis; here, 14 people die of an overdose every single day.

A 2019 study from the United Hospital Fund found that, in 2017, an estimated 240,000 children in the U.S. had lost a parent to a drug overdose. Given that one study out of Allegheny County estimated that 50% of people who die from an overdose were parents, the number of “opioid orphans” will undoubtedly rise.

What happens to the children left behind? This drug crisis is creating a generation of kids whose lives will never be the same. They are among the most innocent and severely impacted of all the victims of the opioid crisis. Without adequate help, they are three times more likely to develop alcohol or drug use disorder themselves.

So I was heartened to learn about various settlements that states have reached with the sellers of opioids, which could bring more than $1 billion to Pennsylvania. But while that sounds like a lot of money, it isn’t nearly enough.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has said he wants to direct the funds to treatment for people living with opioid use disorder, but some Pennsylvania counties want some leeway and are asking if they can earmark money for police officers and extra coroners, for instance. Considering that Pennsylvania has 67 counties and one of the highest rates of drug overdose in the nation, it’s easy to see how the money could go quickly.

A review of the list of uses for the opioid settlement money doesn’t include much information on the children who have lost a parent to opioids. Why were no funds earmarked for the growing population of opioid orphans being raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles, and other loving caregivers? Many of us desperately need financial help to ensure that these children enjoy reasonable living conditions, effective counseling, and appropriate educational opportunities.

I am calling on Pennsylvania to ensure that the real victims get the help they need.

M.A. Brown lives in Bucks County.