In the two years since Jennifer Adkins buried her 14-year-old son after he was fatally hit by teenagers involved in a gang, the Crofton mother has been unable to bring herself to wash the towels in his laundry basket.
But she has turned her grief outward, speaking about what she wants to be known as her son's "legacy": protecting children from violence by their peers. She doesn't want other teens meeting the same fate as either her son, Christopher Jones, or his attackers, who are now in juvenile facilities.
She has supported legislation, raises funds for a community center so that suburban youths will have a place to go and prods teens to attend anti-gang programs. She also recently recounted Christopher's death to convicts in a state prison who are trying to get their anti-violence message out to the streets.
"I can't just let go and move on. I need people to know how good of a kid he was, how loving he was," Adkins said. "He wasn't in a gang, but he was killed two blocks from home, in a neighborhood where everyone's shutters match the doors."
Christopher's death May 30, 2009, jolted parents across the country who believed their suburban settings, solid schools and good kids would be unscathed by what is typically seen as an inner-city problem born of desperation. But, Adkins says, Christopher was the son of an overprotective mother and a father in law enforcement; he was caught in a beef between two suburban teen groups yet was a member of neither; he was involved not in violence, but in church and sports.
And he was bicycling near his home when he was killed, she said.
"Jennifer Adkins holds a lot of credibility when it comes to this topic," said Art Huseonica, former president of the Greater Crofton Council. "Her appeal is her honesty. She is not afraid to talk to people about this, to share feelings, to share her innermost feelings. She doesn't want her son's memory to die."
Huseonica is among area residents who work with the Extra Legalese Group, a prisoners' organization that urges curbing gang violence. Adkins has spoken with inmates at the Jessup Correctional Institution, where some are serving life sentences.
The depth of her pain brought the men to tears, Robert T. Morgan, an ELG founder, recently said. Adkins supports their voice-of-experience advocacy that seeks to steer youths clear of gang warfare and keep gang issues away from innocent people.
"Christopher's legacy," Adkins said, includes the passage last year of the Safe Schools Act. Anne Arundel County police said they were unaware of bullying that led Adkins and her former husband, David Jones, to transfer their son out of Arundel High School. Privacy laws had blocked schools, juvenile services and police from sharing information, but the General Assembly removed the barriers, and a supportive Adkins watched Gov. Martin O'Malley sign the legislation.
"I think there are incidents that will be prevented because we put this bill in," said House Speaker Michael E. Busch, adding that he admires Adkins' drive to help other youths.
Christopher's death reignited interest in the Crofton Regional Community Center, prompting county officials to lease a 4-acre site in Crofton for $1 a year to a community group for a facility that would be privately built. Adkins and her former husband contributed $7,000 raised in their son's memory. A feasibility study is under way, and Adkins promotes the group's fundraisers.
"She has been a tremendous help," said former state Sen. Janet Greenip, who is spearheading the effort.
David Jones has been beside his former wife in much of her push, and he describes her as the more outspoken of them. He went to the state prison with her, has attended community center fundraisers she's promoted and has stayed committed to greater safety for youths in the wake of Christopher's death.
"I don't see it as a legacy as much as getting this done so kids don't have go through what he did," said Jones, a Prince George's County deputy sheriff. What matters is less about the wording and more about protection for other kids, he said.
Anne Arundel County Sheriff Ron Bateman promised to conduct an annual warrant sweep in Christopher's memory; the teen wanted to pursue a law enforcement career like his father's. Adkins and Jones joined deputies on a May 22 sweep that netted 40 arrests.
"I got to live a little bit of his dream," Adkins said.
Some of those handcuffed were undoubtedly parents, she said. "What kind of impact are they having on their kids if they are getting arrested for assault and DWI? What kind of example could they possibly be setting?"
Recognition of the serious nature of youth "crews" prompted the sheriff's office to organize a gang awareness session this year for the county's Circuit Court judges and others, as well as a program for parents through the Juvenile Court. That anti-bullying and anti-gang initiatives are coming into their own in schools and elsewhere, locally and nationally, is heartening to Adkins.
On Monday, the second anniversary of Christopher's death, the family will visit his grave and probably have a candlelight vigil at the site on Nantucket Drive where he died. But they also plan to be at an afternoon celebration of Christopher's life at a friend's home, joined by his friends.
"Knowing they are going to be there with me helps me, it gives me comfort," Adkins said. She was thrilled when one friend of her son told her last week that, remembering Chris, he walked away from a fistfight.
Recent prom photos show her son's friends in tuxedos.
"It's really, really hard, because I go on Facebook and I see them growing up, and they look like men. They are growing up, and Chris …" she trailed off and stared at a photo collage in her kitchen that shows a boy who didn't get past age 14.
With her husband, Paul, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, and neither of them working, she is facing the prospect that she may lose the house where her son's clothes hang in his closet. More important than the home, she said, is this: "I'm never going to stop fighting for his legacy and to protect kids in his name."