Cross Purposes

In Texas, memorials are allowed on state highways only for DWI-related deaths. Houston district judge Ted Poe takes it further: He requires people convicted of causing fatal wrecks to raise and maintain white crosses at the crash scenes. So far, twenty such monuments have been posted. "It lets the accused know that a life was taken there for no reason," Poe says. "When they're out digging the hole and tending the ground, some have had pretty emotional reactions. One offender said, 'That was the first time I realized I took someone's life.'"

Montana follows a similar rationale for its memorial program, which dates back to 1953, when six people died in car wrecks over the Labor Day weekend and the American Legion posted white crosses at each of the crash sites. Today there are hundreds of death markers along the roads. "It's pretty tough to find a highway that doesn't have one," says Pete Richardson, a Montana highway patrol sergeant and American Legion member. "People die on the highway every day. It's hard to count how many crashes you prevent, but it has been well-received. The crosses speak for themselves."

Karen Long waits up for her children now. It doesn't matter where they have been or how late they are. When they walk through the front door, Karen is there. After Angela died, it was something she promised to do. Four years later, she has kept her word.

Angela was on her way to Eaton from her boyfriend's house in Greeley. They think she fell asleep at the wheel, because there were no skid marks leading to the telephone pole. Angela had not been drinking, but it was late, around midnight, and she had been burning the candle at both ends. She was days away from her high school graduation and had already started work at the paint store. She wasn't speeding, either, and the road was paved and straight. But somehow, her little Ford found the telephone pole, spun around and threw Angela into a field. They said she was wearing her seatbelt, but how can you know?

The deputies posted the cross. They do that when someone dies on Weld County roads. Angela's friends added mementos, Karen's husband brought flowers, and the marker became a permanent memorial. Later the cross was nailed to the pole that Angela had hit so it wouldn't be battered by the rain and wind.

Karen waited a long time before she visited the marker. Even now, she seldom goes there. Sometimes she will drive miles out of her way to avoid it, even though it's on her way home. But it is in a beautiful place, she does admit that. There's a little creek nearby and plenty of grass. Still, she prefers the privacy of the cemetery, where there's a picture of Angela on the headstone and words to remember her by.

To tell the truth, Karen doesn't really know why they put the cross up. The ground is sacred, yes; it is the place where angels came for Angela. But it is a sad place, too. The place where she lost her oldest daughter. And the few times Karen has stood beside the white cross, she has felt lonely.

Colorado's highway department has mixed feelings about descansos. When road crews notice the memorials on state or federal highways (where they are also illegal), they either take them down or order the families to do so. In October 1998, for instance, the family of nineteen-year-old Sabrina Stevens raised a sturdy pink cross off C-470 in Lakewood, where a truck driver had found her nude body. The next day, someone saw a photo of the memorial in a newspaper and complained. So the state asked the Stevens family to come back from Arizona and remove it.

But that doesn't mean hunting down descansos is a top priority, says Dan Hopkins, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. Colorado would much rather have maintenance teams patching potholes, fixing guardrails and plowing snow than pulling up roadside memorials, he explains. Besides, the highway department is not completely insensitive. When possible, Hopkins says, it directs grieving families toward a memorial-sign program pushed by Mark George, a detective with the Boulder Sheriff's Department, and Pati Lloyd, executive director of the Denver chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

That project began in 1996, after George returned from trips to Hawaii and New Mexico, where he saw dozens of descansos along the roads. George, who is an expert in DWI education and prevention, wanted to use similar symbols in Colorado to raise awareness about DWI deaths. And Lloyd wanted to start an education campaign, because the year before, Colorado had recorded one of its worst years for DWI deaths: 232 in 1995 alone. Following Texas's lead, they chose small wooden crosses as memorials.