Thomas Bok

Thomas Bok loved to wear designer clothes. He dressed sharply. He wanted to grow up and be a firefighter.

Badly burned on his mouth at age 3, Tom had 11 facial operations throughout his life. He met a lot of firefighters who volunteered at a camp run by the Shriners Burns Institute, which is how he got inspired to a firefighter himself.

But he didn't have the chance.

Drugs took away his drive to succeed in school and he dropped out in the 11th grade, his mother, Naomi Willson, of East Falmouth, said.

Drugs took away his fine clothes, because he could no longer afford them.

In 2005, Tom was living in a sober house in Orleans when heroin took his life. He was 20.

Tom had just told his mother that one of his friends was using heroin. Willson assumed her son still abused only oxycodone. "I said, 'Tom, don't ever do that. Heroin will kill you.'" Ten days later, April 25, Tom was dead.