Yield

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It’s not that he didn’t yield. He was just too fast, and he missed the turn, and the car rolled and flipped, landing in front of the yield sign on Colburn Colvert road, a few miles from home.

He missed, and I miss him. He died a day before his 18^th birthday, and his friends gathered at the yield sign by the crash site, decorating it with flowers, a Happy Birthday banner and festive balloons. Best of all, they signed the yield sign.

My daughter and I coated the sign with a thin layer of varnish, hoping to preserve those signatures, and every year on Nik’s birthday, we’d drive out to the crash sign to resign the sign.

Weather in North Idaho is rough on signatures, roads, and road signs, and one year, an acquaintance came up to me and said, “You need to go get your sign.” At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. Exasperated with me, she said, “Nik’s sign came down during the last storm. I dragged it to the side of the road. You need to go get it.”

I stopped at the hardware store to purchase a few tools, and headed straight to the accident site. The roads, coated in ice and slush, were hazardous, and I was grateful for studded tires. The sign, heavy and bulky, fit snugly in the trunk of my car, and I drove home feeling like I had rescued a lost treasure.

Sandy, my step-dad, made a post for the sign, and we planted it in Nik’s memorial garden. The original signatures have faded, but every year, we resign the Yield in memory of Nik.

Nik’s garden grows around the sign, a display of colors as bright and beautiful as the fireworks on the Fourth of July. The hummingbirds sip of the nectar hanging above his sign, and the red-winged general feasts on the sunflowers in the glass bird feeder (another gift for the garden).

The garden, a magical paradise teaming with glorious life, helps center my sometime turbulent grief that, at times, explodes like a young volcano. The flowers, the fruit, the vegetables grow in spite of my bereavement, reminding me that life does go on, and providing me with the opportunity to stop and smell the lavender while counting my blessings.