Veronica Ramirez

It was just past noon on March 21 when 24-year-old Nikolas “Nikko” Malliarodakis was driving back to work at Field Fresh Farms in Watsonville after having lunch at home in Monterey with his fiancee Monica Loza. He was heading north on Highway 1 when an SUV heading south swerved over the double-yellow line near Molera Road in Moss Landing, colliding with Malliarodakis and killing him. A passenger in the oncoming car died days later.

The story has stayed in local news headlines as the other driver, 19-year-old Lynnea Hernandez, faces criminal charges for driving under the influence resulting in death, gross vehicular manslaughter and drug possession. (Police officers say they found marijuana and ecstasy in her car.)

But there’s a less public reckoning that continues for family members of those who were killed. On what would have been Malliarodakis’s 25th birthday on July 7, his ashes were buried under a tree in the backyard of the family’s Prunedale home.

“I am compelled to give my son life again and watch him grow,” his mother, Veronica Ramirez, says. “I pray somehow all his heart and soul spread throughout this earth.”

Ramirez spoke to the Weekly about her life since her son’s death.

Weekly: Where were you when you heard the news of Nikko’s death?

Ramirez: I was at home in my daughter’s room folding laundry. Suddenly I felt weird and anxious. It’s unusual for him not to call me during his lunch break.

I started calling and texting his phone, but no answer. Shortly after 1pm, a sheriff’s deputy came to the house and told me small details.

What was your reaction to the news?

As a mother, it’s my job to protect and take care of my child and I have this blame that I couldn’t prevent this.

I went in for surgery in October [2015] for cancer, so I thought, “It should have been me. I’m the one who is sick.” Had I died on that operating table, Nikko promised to move back home to help my husband with my 8-year-old daughter.

Why did you decide to go to Lynnea Hernandez’s first court appearance?

I had to see what she looked like and see if she was remorseful. I needed to see if she showed any signs of saying, “I made a mistake.”

I want to hurt her. I wanted to grab her, because she showed no reaction. I have to be there.

I have to let her know that I will not let her forget what she has done to us. It was hard to see her. It’s hard every time.

What do you want people to learn from this experience?

I want people, especially kids, to realize that in the choices they make, they are not just doing it to other people, but they destroy other people.

What is hardest for you since losing your son?

I cannot even take family pictures now. That key element is not going to be in photos. That girl [Hernandez] will go to jail and have her support with her family, and what are we to do?

She is going to celebrate her birthday, which is the day after Nikko’s.

How do we move on? Until you suffer, you don’t know.

Tell me about the importance of burying his ashes under a tree.

I had been dealing with health issues, and I came up with it three years ago to see if it was OK if this was what we did with me.

Nikko just loved the idea. So when this all happened, I looked at a picture of a casket and I said, “I’m not going to put him in there!”

Nikko wrote a poem for me in high school and drew a tree for me; I don’t know if it was a premonition or what.

When Nikko was about 3, we would go read at the bookstore and we came across The Giving Tree.

We were both crying and he couldn’t believe the tree did all that! I bought the book, and every day I still read to him now.

What is the biggest thing you learned from Nikko?

Just how to be loving and unselfish. How to give without taking. It all came so natural.

I gave everything of myself to Nikko and I tell my husband that I don’t know if I should stop fighting and let myself die, or do I fight and live for my daughter?

I have chest pain and it doesn’t go away since that day. I’m full of anxiety.

I’m trying to live, because that is what Nikko would want me to do.