Shelby & The Pancake Puppies

Maryanne Pope
3 min readSep 2, 2024

My heart was broken open by an addict

“Nothing is more important than another human being’s suffering. Nothing. Not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we are going to survive with dignity.”

– Audrey Hepburn

Have you driven along East Hastings in Vancouver, BC recently?

I hadn’t driven down that street for more than a decade. And what I saw a couple of weeks ago, when GPS directed me to drive down it, shocked me.

But first, let me back up a bit and tell you how that day started…for me.

Let’s see…I woke up at a friend’s place in the beautiful community of Cordova Bay near Victoria. I had coffee in their lovely sunroom with Eddie the cat curled up beside me and Archie, the lab/retriever puppy, bouncing about. As I looked out the window at the flowers blooming in their garden, thinking about the fun road trip ahead of me, I remember thinking, “I am so friggin’ lucky.”

Then I hopped in my car, boarded the ferry to Vancouver and enjoyed a yummy White Spot breakfast on board while taking in the stunning scenery.

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Maryanne Pope

Maryanne writes blogs, books, screenplays & play scripts. She is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions & Co-Founder of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund.