A Field for Healing

Shortly into their two-hour drive to a San Diego soccer tournament, 12-year-old Tommy Mark turned to his mom, Nikki, and began peppering her with questions about the meaning of life.

- JOHNNY DODD

"Is it possible to go to sleep and not wake up?" Nikki, 54, recalls Tommy asking as she tried to reassure him that he didn't need to worry about something like that at his age. "And then a couple minutes later he said, 'It must be really hard for a parent to lose a child."" 

Three days later Tommy's probing inquiries took on a deeper significance when Nikki walked into his bedroom at the family's house in Los Angeles in April of 2018 to rouse him for soccer practice and made a horrifying discovery. "He was never late for his workouts," she says. "But he didn't wake up. He was gone, and suddenly everything changed."