The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Run honors daughter’s memory
Saturday event aimed to take stigma out of addiction
WINCHESTER — There is a saying Rita Bardino repeats to herself and others as she, her husband Steve, and daughter Angela continue to honor the memory of Lauren Bardino, 24, who was a victim of the ongoing opioid epidemic.
It is: “Grief is love with nowhere to go.”
After losing her daughter in December 2017, Rita Bardino organized a run in her memory in 2018. The run, with the motto “Spread the Lauren Love,” was held again Saturday, marking International Overdose Awareness Day, a movement to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of drugrelated death, according to https:// www.overdoseday.com.
The first run in 2018 drew 96 runners, and this year’s event drew 185 participants.
“There’s a stigma, there’s shame associated with it (drug related deaths) and I wanted to do something,” Bardino said. “I was working at the Gilson Theater (in Winsted) and I met up with Maria Coutant Skinner. She’s the director of the McCall (Center for Behavioral Health) in Torrington.”
She related the story of the loss of her daughter to Coutant
“I told everyone there that there are people standing right next to you, who you don’t even know are suffering. Just open your eyes, have compassion. That’s what Lauren would have done.” Rita Bardino
Skinner, she said. “When you’re grieving, you talk to people,” she said. “I knew she was the director of the foundation, and she was the person who was good for me to talk to that night ... I worked at the Gilson for many years, and I don’t remember ever running into her before, so it seemed like it was meant to be.
“I said, I will be in touch with you, because I need to do something,” Bardino said. “We spoke a couple more times, and after talking to a friend of Lauren’s, it just came together. Her friend said that Lauren told her, ‘If anything happens to me, they’ll probably hold a run or something.’ I knew it was the right thing to do. So that’s what spearheaded this run.”
The run Saturday was held at Platt Hill State Park in Winsted. “We were able to donate $500 to the McCall Foundation,” Bardino said. “It’s been an amazing experience. I’ve been blessed with so many volunteers. People came out of the woodwork to help. The turnout was fabulous this year.”
Lauren Bardino graduated from the Gilbert School and was a “creative, artistic individual,” her mother said. “She’d decorate her friends’ lockers for their birthdays. ... If she was still here, she’d be a designer.
“But she was also just a caring, loving person. If someone didn’t have money for clothes, she’d bring them to her room and say ‘Here, you can have these.’ She was very special,” Bardino said.
This year’s Spread the Lauren Love run drew more addicts in recovery, she said, who approached her after the event and thanked her for doing it.
“They talked to me, they hugged me, and wanted to tell me their own story,” Bardino said. “They appreciated it. I told everyone there that there are people standing right next to you, who you don’t even know are suffering. Just open your eyes, have compassion. That’s what Lauren would have done.”
A special part of Saturday’s run was “the love sketch,” which Bardino found in a spiral bound notebook of Lauren’s. “It was all on separate pages, and we put it together and made it our emblem,” she said. “My husband has it tattooed on his arm.”
Bardino wants to be sure people understand her goals for the run and the money it raises.
“We just have to prove there is support out there for people who are struggling with this ... there are rules that should change, for people who are sick (with addiction). And it’s all about showing support for them. We want this to be very positive.”
Bardino plans to set up a scholarship fund in Lauren’s name. Donations to the Lauren Bardino Memorial Fund can be made at the main branch of Northwest Community Bank, 86 Main St., Winsted.
A portion of the money collected will go to McCall, and the rest to the scholarship fund. More fundraisers are in the works, she said.