‘Reach out and make that call’
Mother shares message after son’s death in car crash
Rachel Holland didn’t have her cellphone when her son, Zachary, called that night in late August.
“I was upstairs in the bathroom,” she told me from her living room, pointing upward.
When Zachary called again a few minutes later, his sister picked up their mother’s phone to hear that he was driving to their Valparaiso home to do his laundry. This was nothing new for Zachary, who often returned to the home where he was raised. Sometimes just to vent to his mother.
“But he never got here that night,” Holland said, her eyes welling with tears.
While driving from his home in Union Mills, Zachary’s vehicle was hit by a pickup truck on U.S. 6 in LaPorte County. He died at the scene. Zachary Scott Holland was 20.
Just after midnight, long after he was supposed to show up, a deputy coroner called Zachary’s mother. She received the phone call that every parent fears.
“I hate to tell you, but your son was in a car accident. And he died. I’m so sorry,” the caller said. Those unforgettable words have
haunted Holland since Zachary’s death Aug. 21.
“How do you know it’s my son?” Holland asked the deputy coroner.
She was told that the coroner’s office had Zachary’s driver’s license and identification as a correctional guard at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
“She told me it’s a positive identification,” Holland said.
She remembers dropping to the floor in disbelief.
“No! No! No!” she yelled, pounding the floor.
She doesn’t remember her shrieking scream, the sound that, as a former EMS paramedic, she heard from other mothers immediately after being told their child has died.
“My life stopped at that moment,” Holland said, trying to compose herself.
With the deputy coroner still on the phone, Holland broke the news that night to one of her daughters and later to other family members. “What ifs …” began tormenting her.
What if she had her phone with her earlier that night? What if she answered Zachary’s calls? What if she was able to talk with her son one last time before his death?
“I’ll never know,” Holland said, staring at his cellphone that’s now in her living room.
The next day on her Facebook page, Holland told the world about her son’s death: “I lost my only son in a horrible accident last night. God help me!”
At his funeral at Bartholomew Funeral Home in Valparaiso, mourners were invited to wear DC or Marvel comic apparel. Zachary had loved those comics since childhood. His family cried into comic book-themed tissues.
She again posted on Facebook, “I have no words other than I am lost without you!”
Zachary’s ashes rest in a container in her dining room. His cellphone and digital tablet remain untouched in her living room, next to a comic bookthemed plaque in the shape of HERO. It’s part of a makeshift memorial, comprised of photos, candles and other keepsakes.
His remaining belongings are piled on her dining room table.
“I haven’t yet looked at the guestbook from his funeral. I just can’t do it,” Holland said, holding up one of the photo collages from his funeral.
Three months to the day after she received that phone call from the coroner’s office – on Thanksgiving – Holland recorded a video to post on Facebook. She wanted to honor her son. She wanted to share a painful lesson since her son’s sudden death.
“That night, we died … together. Just like that,” Holland says in the video while standing behind her son’s memorial.
“My holiday table looks like this,” she says in the video, showing her dining room table adorned with plants from her son’s funeral. “Be grateful that your holiday table doesn’t look like mine.”
With Christmas coming, Holland’s video contains a message for all of us.
“No one can give me for Christmas what I really want – my son given back to me, wrapped up in a bow and placed under my tree,” she told me, clutching a child- hood photo of Zachary. “So I’m hoping people will listen to my message before Christmas comes. And I pray they act on it.”
Holland’s Christmas wish is to help at least one parent and child create a stronger connection, or to possibly reconnect if they feel estranged. Holland said she had a deep connection to her son, but is any mother-child connection deep enough?
“I have hope of turning this tragedy into something positive, to get through this impossible holiday season,” she said.
Making the video has helped her heal since Zachary’s death. She hopes it helps others begin to heal, too. Watch her video at https://tinyurl.com/ydargmdm.
“Life is so fragile,” Holland says in the video. “Don’t be so wrapped up in things that don’t really matter or aren’t really that important.”
Repair broken relationships. Mend broken hearts. Take that first step to do so.
“My message to you is, if you’re furious with one of your siblings, or not speaking with your lifelong friend, put away your differences, extend an olive branch,” she says in the video.
She will forever miss those late-night phone calls from her son. She doesn’t want anyone else to miss a similar call from a loved one.
“Reach out and make that call,” Holland said. “Just try, that’s all I ask.”