The first thing you notice in the obituary for Molly Alice Parks is her photo. She's young, bright red lipstick; her hair streaked with pink and teal. Molly Parks died last Thursday in Manchester, N.H. She was 24. And what's most remarkable in that obituary is her family's candor in revealing how she died - a heroin overdose. We reached Molly's father, Tom Parks, at his home in Saco, Maine, today to talk about that decision to go public with her cause of death and her history of addiction. We began by talking about Molly's passions - reading, playing the piano and drawing, especially gowns.
TOM PARKS: She played dress up her whole life. I mean, she'd go to thrift shops and find nice dresses, get them for nothing and her and her friends would dress even if they stayed in the house. She never lost her passion for anything, though, believe it or not. I mean, you'd think that addicts withdraw completely into themselves, and that wasn't Molly. She loved her friends. She loved us. She loved life; just the addiction was too much. She just - she couldn't fight it off. And a friend of hers told us that when she got out of the last rehab, when she was - the third one in eight months - that she wasn't out for a week-and-a-half or so, two weeks, and her dealer was calling her, texting her, bugging her; you know, I always thought she was a strong kid, but she wasn't that strong.
[For more of this story go to http://www.npr.org/2015/04/23/...ddiction-in-obituary]
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