Alison Michiko Shuemake had just graduated high school, started a new job and moved in with her boyfriend when she suddenly passed away on Wednesday, Aug. 26. When her grieving parents Fred and Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake sat down to write her obituary, they decided to tell the truth.

"Alison Michiko Age 18, of Middletown, OH passed away Wednesday, August 26, 2015 of a heroin overdose," the obituary states directly. The shame that goes along with drug addiction is what keeps it alive, and Alison's parents wanted to defy that shame.

"There was no hesitation," Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake told CBS News on including Alison's cause of death. "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."

Alison's boyfriend, Luther Combs, passed away with her on that same day. After the Shuemakes informed Combs' parents about their intention to include cause of death, the Combs family followed suit with his obituary as well.

After posting Alision's obit online, there's been a huge amount of support for the Shuemakes' decision to be open about their daughter's passing. Other parents have commented on her obituary about the children they've also lost to drug addiction.

"What really matters is keeping some other person, especially a child, from trying this," Shuemake said. "We didn't want anybody else to feel the same agony and wretchedness that we're left with."

H/T Seventeen