SACO — Late this afternoon, the family and friends of Molly Parks will gather together at the Old Orchard Beach Funeral Home to remember her. She was the one with the wicked, barbed sense of humor, the passion for theater and Harry Potter books and for old movies, like “Gone with the Wind.” Her family said her driving skills were horrible. She dyed her hair in what her father calls “rooster” colors and she loved sizzling red lipstick.

And she died Thursday in Manchester, New Hampshire of a heroin overdose.

She’d fought the addiction that had had held her in a stranglehold for five years or more; Molly had been in three rehabilitation programs since August.

But Thursday rolled around, and just before the start of her delivery shift at a Manchester pizza shop, Amelia, who was always called Molly, went into the women’s room and put a needle in her arm. A customer found her there, unresponsive. Emergency services arrived and set to work, to no avail. They weren’t able to save Molly Parks.

She was 24 years-old and charming and intelligent and she was addicted.

Her family loved her ”“ and she loved them.

And when the time came to write her obituary, her father Tom Parks, stepmother Pat Noble and sister Kasey Parks decided to put it out there ”“ to speak up about Molly’s addiction, with the hope that it might do some good. Addiction and overdoses and deaths happen, but mostly no one says so out loud, Parks pointed out. When the person dies young, the death is usually expressed as “suddenly,” or “unexpectedly.” And while not every young person who dies suddenly or unexpectedly has died of an overdose, some do.

“People need to stop keeping it a secret,” Parks said.

The family spoke with the Journal Tribune in a 90-minute interview Tuesday. They are grieving; but they also want the world to know what happened to Molly, because it might save a life.

“If this helps one person, I know Molly’s death isn’t in vain,” said Parks, his voice ragged with emotion and sleepless nights since Saco Police showed up on his doorstep Thursday evening to tell him the news that no parent ever wants to hear. “If only one person is saved, it would be enough.”

Molly’s addiction began in high school, with alcohol, and then she was introduced to OxyContin by a friend. But that drug is expensive, and so eventually she turned to heroin. Her sister said she shot other drugs too, like morphine.

Thursday’s overdose wasn’t Molly’s first ”“ but it was the last for this 2009 graduate of Old Orchard Beach High School.

Back in August, she was living with an aunt in Manchester, who found the 24-year-old in the bathroom unresponsive, one day. She’d overdosed. She was taken by ambulance to hospital, stabilized, and sent home within a couple of hours with no counseling and no help, her father said. Another time, he said, she’d asked for help at a Portland hospital, but was rejected because she wasn’t in withdrawal at the time.

Rehabilitation clinics seemed most concerned about money, Parks said. His daughter had insurance that he provided, but a stint at one rehab clinic exhausted the benefit, and he said she was in another for just 36 hours when the clinic called and threatened to discharge her unless he made an immediate payment of $2,600. Then, they had his daughter call. Parks found the money, but his daughter left that clinic after a couple of weeks, telling her father she’d been kicked out because she didn’t want to talk about her issues in group meetings.

Was that true? Well, that’s hard to say. Addicts are good liars, Parks pointed out. But while his daughter did indeed love theater and acting, he said she really didn’t like to talk about herself.

Things went better at her third clinic, where she stayed for 58 days, eventually moving into the clinic’s transitional housing unit.

“But she still wanted to use every day,” said Parks.

“She wasn’t a very strong person, said her sister Kasey. “She was a follower not a leader.”

Through it all Molly always had a job, working for a time as a debt collector, calling people who owed money. As often as not, she would end up sympathizing with the debtor, her father said with a smile. When she died, she was working 55-hour weeks at the pizza place. And while her Dad had bought her a couple of used cars in the past, the car she was driving most recently she’d bought herself, at a “buy here, pay here,” dealership. She kept up the payments, he father said, and when her income tax refund arrived, she took it to the dealer, to pay ahead. She was being responsible, and her father was proud of her.

There were many ups and downs. Before she moved to Manchester, Molly left Old Orchard Beach and stayed with a cousin in Worcester, Massachusetts, figuring if she could get away, she might reach her goal of recovery.

“But she found the junk again,” said Parks.

And now the young woman Pat, her stepmother, called “Molly Wolly Bear,” will live on only in her family’s hearts.

Those in the York County medical, social service and law enforcement communities have recently come together to form a task force aimed at fighting heroin addiction and its ravages. Another session is scheduled for sometime in May in Biddeford. During the first session in Wells at the end of March, Dr. Andrew Powell, associate director of emergency services at Southern Maine Health Care, estimated that between the Biddeford and Sanford medical centers, “not a day goes by,” without an overdose. He said he’d seen significant increases in the last 18 months.

Tom, Kasey and Pat are calling for folks with family members who are addicted to do everything possible to support their fight and guide them to rehabilitation.

“She wasn’t just an addict, she was a loving, caring person,” Parks said of his daughter. “Molly was a good kid with a big problem.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or [email protected].