Empathetic, compassionate, outgoing, fearless, mother
Alyse was the force of life in her family. Outgoing, charming and so LOUD; anyone in the family would agree this is not an exaggeration. You knew when she arrived because you could hear her voice and her laugh from three rooms away. Under the tough and stubborn veneer, she had the softest, biggest heart.
Looking away from the pain of others was not in her nature. Alyse was fiercely protective of anyone, known to her or not, who felt alone, abandoned, or outcast. “I believe her inability to compartmentalize herself from the pain of others, contributed to her own,” her brother and best friend, Robert, stated. She was unapologetic for what she believed in.
True to her nature, she worked as a case manager, assisting others in overcoming their struggles with addiction and later, worked as the outreach director and recovery coach in a treatment center.
The center of Alyse’s world were her two children, Sienna Rae, 14 and Maddox Timothy, four. She took the kids to parks, laser tag, arcades, snow tubing, and amusement parks. Alyse was not the mother on the bench watching. She was in full out participation, crawling through jungle gyms, going down slides, and laughing while playing hide and seek. She was their favorite playmate! “My sister loved her children more than life itself. I witnessed how desperate she was to overcome the disease for them,” Robert said.
Alyse dreamed of owning a home in a quiet neighborhood, with a yard for Maddox. She cleared her debts, repaired her credit score, and saved money toward this goal. For a long while, everything seemed to be on track with making this goal a reality.
Alyse looked forward to the family’s annual apple picking and pie baking weekend and the family reunion at Christmas with her parents, Pauline and Timothy, brother Robert, sisters, Kelli, Shayla, Jennifer and Liane, and extended family. Alyse and her children were always the first to arrive and the last to leave. They also camped on Memorial Day and Halloween weekend at Strawberry Park. Those weekends were filled with swimming, games, crafts, campfires, and trick-or-treating around the campground.
During the pandemic, Alyse became the resident barber for her father. She had a goal of “bringing out the George Clooney in him.” Robert’s favorite times, before Alyse’s relapse, were riding along with her in her pandemic job with UberEats, laughing, singing, and talking as they drove across Boston. It brought back favorite memories of when they did the same as teenagers joyriding in their neighborhood.
The family was proud of Alyse’s six-year sobriety after her initial four-year struggle with substance use disorder. She got an apartment and began a career working in the recovery field. After six years free of addiction, Alyse relapsed. “It is the strangest thing to be next to someone you’ve known your whole life and to feel you don’t know them at all,” Robert said. “In a short time, years of a special bond were reduced to us being simply strangers.”
As her disease progressed, Alyse resisted help and isolated herself. The courts thwarted the family’s attempts to get her help. The dedication and love for her children were replaced with thoughts of failure, shame, and avoidance. Every day was spent feeling unsure if today was Alyse’s last, lost to a drug laced with deadly fentanyl. On a daily wellness check, her father found Alyse unresponsive from an overdose.
Alyse’s brother and best friend, Robert Walsh, provided the information for this narrative with the support of their parents, Timothy and Pauline Walsh, and her sisters, Kelli, Shayla, Jennifer and Liane.
January 22, 1987-September 2, 2023-Age 36
Portrait Artist: Jeremy Hebbel
Narrative Writer: Barbara Francois
