Alison Shuemake died last August, and her parents were honest enough to bring out a message that a "heroin overdose" should not be a matter to be ashamed of admitting, especially when parents hide the truth about their children. They declared in her obituary that she did, in fact, die from heroin overdose, seeking to affect the lives of parents who hide the truth about their children.
Late August of this year, Fred and Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake bid goodbye to their 18-year old daughter Alison Shuemake who was found along with her boyfriend dead in their shared apartment, reported CBS News.
Alison and boyfriend Luther Combs' autopsies revealed that they had opiates and marijuana in their body systems that indicated the two died from drug abuse.
The family was devastated by the news. However, they did not refrain from keeping the honest reason behind their daughter's death.
On Alison's obituary that was revealed in the Journal-News of Ohio, it read, "passed away Wednesday, August 26, 2015, of a heroin overdose."
When the couple was interviewed about how bluntly they revealed the reason behind their daughter's demise, Dorothy stated, "There was no hesitation. We've seen other deaths when it's heroin, and the families don't talk about it because they're ashamed or they feel guilty. Shame doesn't matter right now."
As reported by New York Daily News, in Butler County alone, there were already 30 deaths due to heroin in 2012, 103 for 2014, and 86 deaths for the first six months of this year. This showed that there were increasing deaths because of heroin in the state.
The parents of Alison felt that they needed to be honest with their daughter's obituaries to raise awareness that heroin has become a national epidemic in the state. Dorothy stated "What really matters is keeping some other person, especially a child, from trying this... We didn't want anybody else to feel the same agony and wretchedness that we're left with."
Alison, prior to her death, was admitted to a rehab and was clean from the drug for months. However, she relapsed for the last time, and eventually died from her addiction.
Deaths caused by heroin overdose have been increasing from year to year, and this parents' reaction on how to be honest about it clearly sent a clear message to other parents out there that this is a national epidemic that they should act upon before their children would suffer the same fate as Alison.
