ANOKA, Minn. — In the summer of 2019, Missy Merschman needed to find a way to make light — in the dark — for the family of Private Nicole Burnham.
"I just cant imagine what their family goes through," said Merschman. "And its import for them that Nicole isn't forgotten, and I don't want her to be either."
Burnham was a graduate of Anoka High School, and an Army private from 2015 until her death by suicide in 2018. She died just four months after telling her Army superiors she was sexually assaulted by a solider in her barracks — a soldier the Army didn't remove from being in Burnham's daily contact after the assault for more than 80 days.
"She was outgoing and funny, beautiful," said Merschman. "She was just a shining star, and so its hard to understand why she's not here and I don't want her to be forgotten."
Merschman memorialized Burnham with the Anoka Kindness Rock Garden — a small spot under a tree at the veteran's memorial. The memorial is a place of peace, and a place where folks could stop to take a piece, a rock, painted with a message of kindness.
"I've known Nicole's family really felt kindness was important, and Nicole's message was to be good to people and kind to people," Merschman said, "and I wanted that to live on."
In the three years its been around, the garden outgrew its home under the tree. Too many people needed a rock — or made a rock — and so it moved to it's new location, which is where Tammy found herself over the years, too.
"I kept wanting to come back to that garden, a peaceful place to sit and be, and something I wanted to be close to," she said.
Tammy first saw the rocks back at the old tree, and came back again and again, and then...
"Then we ended up having a crisis in our family," she said. "One of my kiddos in a real mental health crisis, we ended up taking my child to the hospital and when I left my child at the hospital to drive away, it was one of hardest moments of my life. But I had rocks with me that had powerful words on them that I wanted to leave behind."
After she left them that day, she came back and began painting them for others who might need them when their day came — to just get, the tiniest boost.
"It does goes deeper (than rocks)," said Tammy. "People want to connect with other people, and people hurting need to connect with other people, and that's what we need to do."
Why does it matter to help a stranger?
"It makes a stronger community and I think we can all do our part, you know," Tammy said. "We can all do something and this is a small way that we found to come together and do something that makes us feel good, and can make others feel good and find some joy."
For more information on the Anoka Kindness Rock Garden, click here.
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