Sarah Callister never took the SATs.

The night before she was to sit down for the all-important exam, the York High School junior died quietly in her sleep.

An autopsy and toxicology report would later reveal nothing. Her heart had simply, inexplicably failed.

“She didn’t have any health problems,” said Lynn Callister, now 10 years after the untimely death of her daughter. “(Her death) was nonsensical in the very sense of the word.”

The grief, Callister said, was disorienting, but from it kind things came. In her memory, Sarah’s math team planted a magnolia tree on the grounds of the Elmhurst high school. Her track team chose a redbud and a plaque with lyrics from a Dave Matthews Band song Sarah had loved — “Celebrate we will, for life is short, but sweet for certain.”

“My husband finds it immensely comforting to sit by those trees,” she said. “(The memorial) is more positive than visiting a cemetery. It’s more uplifting watching the trees go through the seasons because they’re about life. The trees had to be transplanted for a school expansion and they still flourish.”

Just as gravestones, cold and impassive, act as markers of death, living memorials in the form of trees or gardens celebrate the time spent with a loved one now gone.

About a year ago, Callister, now a chapter leader for Compassionate Friends Inc., an international, secular self-help group for bereaved parents, helped plant a flowering Imperial pear tree and erect a metal bench along the Illinois Prairie Path in memory of the group’s deceased children. The chapter, which meets monthly at St. Alexander’s Church in Villa Park, serves the surrounding DuPage area as well as Kane and parts of Cook County.

More recently, the group returned to hang yellow paper hearts from the tree’s branches. Each heart was adorned with a photograph and, on the reverse side, the name of the pictured and the dates of their birth and death. Plaques at the base of the tree and on the bench stand as testaments.

Now when Callister strolls through town or the well-manicured campus of Elmhurst College, she notices how many plaqued trees she passes.

“I’m much more tuned into their meaning,” she said. “I wonder things like ‘Was this person old or young?’”

The Ultimate Sacrifice

It was a wish of Dr. Charles Baker, a past principal at Wheaton Warrenville South High School, to pay tribute to alumni who had made the ultimate sacrifice. The principal got his wish in 1999 when the high school class of 1997, class of 1999 and parent booster association P.A.W.S. joined forces to raise funds and plant a memorial garden in honor of all those who died serving the United States.

The names of alumni from the former Wheaton High School and Wheaton Community High School as well as those who graduated from Wheaton Warrenville South were recognized in engraved stones surrounding a decorative, flagstone foundation located at the school’s front entrance. Engravings include the date of the veteran’s death and the location of the conflict in which they served if that information is known.

“We never intended on adding rocks to the garden,” lamented Bob Quinn, athletic director for the school.

The most recent additions to the memorial, which was moved to a school courtyard in 2006, are stones inscribed with names of Christian Jensen Starr, who was serving in the Coast Guard when he drowned in Hawaii, and Kevin Landeck and Jeffrey Williams who both lost their lives in Iraq.

The courtyard memorial has also become home to trees and perennials.

“We’ve tried to build a bit of tradition into it,” Quinn said. “Each Friday before Memorial Day, members of the outgoing senior class turn the fountain on. New freshman turn it off around Veteran’s Day every year.”

A Single Sunflower

When she was alive, Samantha Bradford loved sunflowers.

“She said, ‘Dad, plant sunflowers,’ one year,” her father, Ray Bradford, said. “I haven’t missed planting them in 27 years.”

Samantha died of complications from cystic fibrosis in May 1996, one day shy of her 21st birthday. By August of that year, Ray had created a garden in her memory. He outlined the garden with red bricks and placed a white angel statue in the middle. He planted a variety of roses, also Samantha’s favorite. But he didn’t plant sunflowers.

One grew anyway — behind the angel statue.

“I have no idea who planted it,” he said.

Ray and wife Sandy have another garden at their East Peoria home, where sunflowers and green beans and tomatoes grow. But “Samantha’s Garden” — as a wooden sign proclaims — is special. It constantly reminds Ray of his daughter.

“Every day, I think of her,” he said. “That’s one thing you never forget.”

Ray also included a statue of a basset hound in the garden to symbolize Samantha’s beloved Mr. Peepers. She was especially attached to the dog, who brooded whenever Samantha was away from home and in the hospital.

“That dog would mope around the house,” Sandy said. “She’d talk to him on the phone when she was in the hospital.”

Mr. Peepers didn’t last without Samantha — he died five months after she did.
But the family doesn’t focus on death.

Samantha’s 14-year-old niece Autum Greeson, who relatives say is Samantha reincarnate, said her aunt’s memory won’t die.

“A garden thrives for life,” Autum said. “The garden is alive, so she’s still alive.”