The father of a 24-year-old woman who died of a heroin overdose decided to address the issue of his daughter’s death by making a plea for others to help family members who may be suffering from different forms of addiction, an effort that allowed his post to become an internet sensation.
Tom Parks went on Facebook the day after his daughter Molly died while at her job at the Portland Pie Company, a restaurant in New Hampshire. Molly Parks had begun her descent into drugs with alcohol, which was followed by pills. Eventually, she made the choice of shooting up heroin, which is what she did after going into a restroom while at work.
The message that Tom Parks left begins by stating that he wasn’t looking for sympathy, while noting that Molly had made both good and bad choices during her lifetime.
“She tried to fight addiction in her own way and last night her fight came to an end in a bathroom of a restaurant with a needle of heroin,” wrote Parks. “Her whole family tried to help her win the battle but we couldn’t show her a way that could cure her addiction.”
Parks closes by making the plea and hoping that his daughter will now find the peace she was searching for while she lived.
The internet obituary was different from the usual standard of media outlets that only list a death of this nature as “sudden,” in order to spare the survivors any more pain.