LANCASTER - Pam Suske brought a photograph with her Friday to Fairfield Medical Center.

It was of her son Jesse with one of his three children.

Jesse died in May from complications related to his 20 years of off and on drug abuse.

“He could get clean for a few years and have a good life,” said his cousin Lynda Campbell, who works at FMC. “Then he’d slide back into it.”

Suske and Campbell were two of the dozens of people who attended a dedication ceremony for a temporary memorial, titled All Soles Matter, in the hospital’s main lobby. It consists of hundreds of shoes to represent the people who’ve died because of their addiction to drugs. It will remain in place through September, when the shoes will be donated to people in addiction recovery.

Campbell said the display was “awesome” and hopes it reminds people that “they meant something to somebody.”

“He was a person that was loved,” Campbell said of her cousin. “The fact that drugs did this to him doesn’t change that.”

Suske said that after having no contact with her son for two years, she got a call in April from a Columbus hospital informing her that he was in the emergency department being treated for sepsis, pneumonia, malnutrition and other issues that stemmed from his addiction. Eventually, he was well enough for her to take him home to the Springfield area, where he was in hospice care and then a nursing facility until he died May 3.