“It’s a boy! Congratulations you have a son! A quick intake of breath, silence, and then a baby’s cry. Joyful tears flowed, the pain forgotten. I lost my heart in his dark eyes. We breathed together, forever would my heart walk outside my body.
“I need you to sit down” the young, solemn faced state trooper murmured. “Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, your son, Justin, is dead.” A quick intake of breath, silence, then an anguished cry. Tears flowed, pain knifed through my chest and my heart died.
A deep azure sky, endless waves of wheat, and hundreds of of small purple thistles nodding their heads in the wind greeted us as we pulled off the interstate. A small sleepy Midwest town had hosted our son’s fatal car accident. Nearly four years I waited to quench the insatiable desire to breathe where he breathed his last and to walk the accident site that I had only seen in photos and news stories.
We trekked down the steep hill to the pond, sliding at times, the wild wheat and thistles pulling at our jeans. Doug carried a wooden cross in his hands, my heart cramped around the searing pain of watching a father walk with a cross to mark his son’s passing.
The ground was marshy, the sharp edged grasses densely packed, our shoes sunk into the boggy ground as we edged closer. Tall cattails stood like sentinels obscuring the pond from our view. The pond was immense, and yet hidden from sight. I finally understood why Justin’s car went unnoticed for hours.
We stood alone, the wind and wild flowers our only company. I had thought that maybe the accident would replay in my head, that God would let me see it unfold, to see how the car flipped and landed upside down in the pond. I thought that I would hear the tires screech, hear the roof hit the water, but I didn’t. And kneeling there, the knees of my jeans wet and muddy, I felt all desire to know the details drain away.
In the stillness I heard the birds, the hum of bees, and the wind. That wild untamed wind that made the flowers dance and cattails sway. I couldn’t have created a more beautiful memorial garden. There was no sense of a spirit at unrest, his ghost does not haunt that pond. That ground has been forever hallowed by his passing, his sweet spirit kissed that place and left some of his gentleness behind. We walked sacred ground that day.
I lingered at the water’s edge and laid purple thistles on his cross. The thistle is an ancient Celtic symbol of nobility, it also represents survival as it will flourish where other plants cannot grow. I breathed deep, filling my lungs with the same air that Justin had last breathed. I felt my heart beat, sustaining a life so foreign and unrecognizable without him. Tears streamed down my face soaking the ground, leaving a part of me to mingle there with the essence of my son.
It was wrenching to turn our backs and leave, the summer sun had wrapped our tense muscles in a warm hug, and there was a protective hovering in the wind. I let my fingers touch the wild flowers as we walked, willing my body to make a memory.
And there in that place of wind and wheat, I heard our gentle son say, “You are a survivors mom and dad, survivors – just like the thistle.”
I wrote “Field of Thistle” for my audition for Listen To Your Mother, Baltimore 2016. I was honored to be selected as a LYTM cast member. The experience of telling my story as a bereaved mother was life-changing. Thank you to everyone who listened and supported with gentle hearts.
