Delaney Farrell was well aware of the potentially deadly heroin circulating around Lycoming County in central Pennsylvania last week before she became a victim of the drug, according to her father, Brian Farrell.

“She called me Thursday night and said, ‘Did you see all the ODs?’” Brian Farrell, of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, said, referring to news reports of a rash of heroin overdoses that sent more than 50 people to the hospital and killed one within a 48-hour period.

“I told her, ‘I’m glad you’re not doing it.'” he said. 

On Saturday morning, 23-year-old Delaney Farrell was found dead from an overdose in a bathroom stall in a hotel where she was working in nearby Williamsport, Pennsylvania. 

Public officials sounded the alarm of a potentially lethal dose of the drug and she heard it. But it still didn’t save her.

“A lot of things can kill you. (Heroin) was her monster. It haunted her constantly,” said Farrell, a Selinsgrove borough council member. 

In an obituary published Wednesday in The Daily Item in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, the family offered a frank and loving tribute to the young woman, whose life, they wrote, ended “after a long and hard battle with drug addiction.”  

In it, the family included one of Delaney Farrell’s many writings about her struggles.

“Funny, I don’t remember no good dope days,” she wrote at one time. “I remember walking for miles in a dope fiend haze. I remember sleeping in houses that had no electric. I remember being called a junkie, but I couldn’t accept it… I remember only causing pain, destruction and harm.”

Brian Farrell said he hopes his daughter’s words will resonate with at least one person. Her obituary has been shared nearly 20,000 times on Facebook alone. 

“I’m not ashamed of her. If I can save one person, I’ll let them look at what an inner battle she had,” Brian Farrell said. “It was a constant horror for her.”

Snyder County District Attorney Michael Piecuch said the frankness of the obituary is a brutal example of addiction’s “cruelty” and a good way to shine a light on the epidemic.

“I do believe it brings addiction out of the shadows,” he said. “Addiction is very isolating, but we are seeing more and more families affected by it being able to deal more openly. I think it helps give insight for people who haven’t experienced it, to see the control it has over people.

“You see in Delaney’s own words how powerless she was,” Piecuch said of the Farrell obituary. “I just hope people don’t lose hope. For every death, there are dozens of success stories and survivors.”

Delaney Farrell went through the legal system in both Snyder and Lycoming counties last year on drug charges, went to jail for a few months and spent time in an inpatient drug treatment center before being released to a sober facility in Williamsport where she was living at the time of her death.

Brian Farrell said she had a full-time job at a hotel and was trying to work her way out of the program when addiction pulled her back at the end of her shift Friday evening.

“She was so close to coming home. All she wanted to do was to come home,” the heartbroken father said, breaking down in tears. 

Moore writes for the Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Daily Item. 

Delaney Farrell’s parents submitted this journal entry, which depicts the pain and suffering that she was enduring during the drug epidemic, to be published along with her obituary:

“Funny, I don’t remember no good dope days. I remember walking for miles in a dope fiend haze. I remember sleeping in houses that had no electric. I remember being called a junkie, but I couldn’t accept it.

“I remember hanging out in abandos that were empty and dark. I remember shooting up in the bathroom and falling out at the park. I remember nodding out in front of my sisters kid. I remember not remembering half of the things that I did.

“I remember the dope man’s time frame, just ten more minutes. I remember those days being so sick that I just wanted to end it. I remember the birthdays and holiday celebrations. All the things I missed during my incarceration.

“I remember overdosing on my bedroom floor. I remember my sisters cry and my dad having to break down the door. I remember the look on his face when I opened my eyes, thinking today was the day that his baby had died.

“I remember blaming myself when my mom decided to leave. I remember the guilt I felt in my chest making it hard to breathe. I remember caring so much but not knowing how to show it. and I know to this day that she probably don’t even know it.

“I remember feeling like I lost all hope. I remember giving up my body for the next bag of dope. I remember only causing pain, destruction and harm. I remember the track marks the needles left on my arm.

“I remember watching the slow break up of my home. I remember thinking my family would be better off if I just left them alone. I remember looking in the mirror at my sickly completion. I remember not recognizing myself in my own Damn reflection.

“I remember constantly obsessing over my next score but what I remember most is getting down on my knees and asking God to save me cuz I don’t want to do this no more !!! “