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NewsCut
Bob Collins

A father fights heroin with his daughter’s obituary

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Photo courtesy of Tom Parks.

Molly Park's family was in a terrible position when they wrote words to live by for the rest of us. They had to write the Maine 24-year-old's obituary and decide just how honest they had to be about her life. She was addicted to heroin.

“She was here last Monday and she looked great,” her father, Tom Parks, told The Washington Post from his home in Saco, Maine. “But it’s so hard, of course, and she got sucked back in.”

Four days later, they found her dead in a bathroom at her job. A needle was stuck in her arm.

By typical conventions, none of that makes the obituary.

Molly Alice Parks, age 24, who most currently resided in Manchester, NH, passed away in Manchester on April 16, 2015 as the result of a heroin overdose.

She was born in York, Maine on March 13, 1991, a daughter of Tom and Patti (Michaud) Parks.

Molly graduated from Old Orchard Beach High School in 2009 and attended one year at SMCC until her addiction took over. Most recently, she was employed as a delivery driver for Portland Pie Co. in Manchester, NH. She enjoyed theater, fashion, reading – especially Harry Potter, and will always be remembered for fearless personality and her trademark red lipstick. Along Molly's journey through life, she made a lot of bad decisions including experimenting with drugs. She fought her addiction to heroin for at least five years and had experienced a near fatal overdose before. Molly's family truly loved her and tried to be as supportive as possible as she struggled with the heroin epidemic that has been so destructive to individuals and families in her age bracket.

She is survived by her parents- Tom Parks and his wife Pat Noble of Saco and Patti Michaud Parks of Berlin, NH; sister- Kasey Parks of OOB; step siblings- Dustin and Delayna Denicourt of Biddeford; maternal grandparents- Rita and Raymond Michaud of Berlin, NH; paternal grandmother- Ruth Parks of OOB; and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and a niece.

If you have any loved one's who are fighting addiction, Molly's family asks that you do everything possible to be supportive, and guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late.

Visitation will be held on Wednesday, April 22, from 4-8 PM at the Old Orchard Beach Funeral Home, 36 Portland Ave., Old Orchard Beach, ME 04064

“People don’t get it," her dad said. "She didn’t look like an addict. She wasn’t what you think of as a ‘junkie.’ ”

“Even if one person reads that and says, ‘Oh my God, that can be me,’ and stops — if we could save one life — we could be happy,” Tom Parks said. “That would mean that Molly didn’t die in vain.”