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What did Heritage Park mean to Dylan? I don’t know for sure, but it did hold something special for him, because he spent quite a bit of time there. The first experience I can remember was pretty emotional for me and the family. It happened in 2006. For a while Dylan and I would ride our bikes together. I guess we would go about six or seven miles. We used to ride around before dinner. One of the highlights was riding by the In and Out on Bouquet Canyon and smelling the grilled onions. I told Dylan a number of times that I swore I could almost taste them. When would head back towards home, we always took the bike path right by Heritage Park, a park built upon the mounds of dirt left behind after the grading was completed for all the new houses built in the area. One day we were riding along a little slope by the park, a place we could build momentum and push it a little, when Dylan’s foot got stuck in his spokes. He went over his handle bars and took a pretty bad spill. Having never had anything like this happen before, I was at a loss. I told him to stay still, because I was worried he broke something. He had his helmet on, which was now cracked, so we were fortunate. It seemed like he hadn’t broken anything, but he had some pretty nasty road rash which looked like something worse to me at the time. I called Donna in a bit of a panic and asked her where she was, and then basically told her she needed to get over there now and take us to the hospital or Urgent Care. While Dylan was being treated, I felt so terrible because it hurt so bad while they were cleaning him up. Ultimately, Dylan was fine. However, he ended up with a nice scar on his elbow that always reminded of the incident.

As a family, we played tennis a few times at the park over the years. The sun always seemed to be pretty brutal whenever we ended up able to get a court.

Later on, while in high school, Dylan used to spend a lot of time with Justin and Malcolm at the park. There were riding their bikes or maybe skateboarding. I’m pretty sure they were behaving themselves for the most part. Then, when Dylan and Thalia got together, they often spent time at the park. Sometimes, they would go there later than Donna and I thought they should, but again I know most of the time that is really where they were.

And now the city of Santa Clarita has allowed us help plant a tree in the park in memory of Dylan. It was a gracious gesture by the city, and we are grateful. We hope that the tree will withstand the forces of nature, so that we can check in on its progress once in a while and reflect on the memories we have had there.