Sharing an unflinching photo of her family at her husband’s funeral, Eva Holland warns the world about the danger of heroin addiction: “If you don’t choose recovery every single day this will be your only way out.” (Photo: Facebook/Eva Holland)

Eva Holland and her children, Lucas and Ava, are all smiles standing next to their father in an open coffin in the photo she posted on Facebook Thursday.

“I guarantee Mike was in heaven laughing as we took our final family photo,” the Cincinnati, Ohio, widow wrote about her late husband on Instagram sharing the same image — from his Sept. 2 funeral. “I used to drive him crazy taking multiple selfies of us trying to get a good one. Tonight was no different. Between the tears I just couldn’t get it right. So even our final photo had to have a re-take. Thanks for giving the kids strength and being there for us tonight.”

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The trio’s incongruous grins make the painful moment truly jarring, and the grieving mother isn’t sorry about that for a second. Holland’s husband died of a heroin overdose, and she wants the world to see exactly what that looks like, in all of its raw awkwardness, so that others may be moved to avoid a similar fate. “I’m sure this photo makes a lot of people uncomfortable [and] it may even piss a few people off but the main reason I took it was to show the reality of addiction,” she wrote on Facebook, in a post which has been shared nearly 248,000 times in just four days. “If you don’t choose recovery every single day this will be your only way out.”

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Mike, who was originally addicted to pain medication, “inevitably” got hooked on heroin. “I know a lot of people may be upset I’m putting it out in the open like this but hiding the facts is only going to keep this epidemic going,” she added, noting that her husband had even recently gone to rehab for help (Holland didn’t respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment). “The cold hard truth is heroin kills. You may think it will never happen to you but guess what, that’s what Mike thought too.”

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(Photo: Facebook/Eva Holland)



The doting father “loved us all so much he decided enough was enough and went to rehab at the end of last year,” she wrote. When he came home to his family shortly before Christmas, Holland says he was a brand-new man. “He had found his purpose for living again, he found his gorgeous smile again. He became the man, the son, the brother, the dad that we all needed him to be again.”

Only his sobriety was short-lived. Taking a “single pill” for a toothache a couple of months ago, she revealed, opened the door to relapse. “He said he could handle it, that he could stop on his own and didn’t need to get help again,” she admitted. “Well he was wrong, last Wednesday he took his last breath. My kids’ father, the man I loved since I was a kid, a great son and a great person lost his battle. I just needed to share his story in case it can help anyone else.”

And it already has. About eight hours after sharing the image, Holland added another note on Facebook revealing that she had also posted the photo to two heroin support groups, through which it was shared more than 1,000 times in mere hours. “I’ve received countless messages and comments from people all over the world. Talking about the problem is truly helping. I’ve had people tell me that his story stopped them from using and others who say it’s motivating them to continue their recovery, even if … just for the day, this is saving lives.”

The mother got that message firsthand as well this weekend. Two days after her original post, a woman ran up to her crying as she was walking down the street in Cincinnati. “[She] asked if she could hug me,” Holland wrote on Facebook. “She said, ‘I am heroin addicted and was going to try and overdose last night but then I [saw] your post and you saved my life. I can never thank you enough!’ So we stood there hugging each other crying. This right here is what it’s all about.”

Similar stories have been pouring in on Facebook. “I am a addict too, your story breaks my heart it took so much courage to do this,” one responder wrote on the mom’s original post. “I’m so sorry for your loss but it makes me sure I want to keep my recovery.” Others praise Holland for making her pain so public. “God bless you for having the courage to declare this war on heroin,” declares another commenter. Another Facebook friend remarked, “Too many people are silent on addiction’s penalty. I pray that your sharing of this wakes up and inspires someone to get free.”

Heroin use, after all, is a high-stakes gamble with death — as Holland knows firsthand. “This was preventable,” she wrote in her Facebook post. “It didn’t have to happen but one wrong choice destroyed his family… He never would’ve imagined his life would turn out this way. He was once so happy and full of life. He was a great son, brother, friend but most importantly he was a great dad. He loved those kids more than anything. But as we all know sometimes life gets tough and we make some wrong choices.”

All that the mother hopes now is that others will learn from her husband’s mistake — for their family’s sake. “No parent should have to bury their child,” she declared. “And no child as young as ours should have to bury their parent.”

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