Annual hike honors teen killed in tragic accident


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SALT LAKE CITY — Melissa Dalton Bradford is almost never at a loss for words. She’s an author and a blogger and speaks four languages fluently.

However, the gifted wordsmith will tell you that she lost her voice for a time after losing her eldest son in a tragic accident.

Parker Bradford died July 21, 2007, while trying to save a friend who was drowning in a swimming hole near BYU-Idaho. He was 18 years old. Since then, Bradford, her husband Randall, sons Dalton and Luc, and daughter, Claire, have led a group of extended family and friends up Mt. Timpanogos each July in memory of the son who was an outdoorsman, an athlete, and a loving brother.

The Bradfords have lived all around the world, first as missionaries and later as a family when Randall Bradford’s job took them to countries across Europe and Asia. Each time the family moved, Melissa Bradford turned to books to get her footing in a new country. That’s what she did when she lost Parker.


Grief is a new country; grief is its own landscape.

–Melissa Bradford


“Grief is a new country; grief is its own landscape. So, I just tried to learn everything I possibly could from everyone who had survived major loss,” she said.

After she finished reading and researching grief, Bradford started writing her recently released book called "On Loss and Living Onward." The book is a mix of her own literary voice with those of others grieving the loss of a loved one.

The book, just like Parker’s hike, is bringing people together in remembrance and in celebration of lives lost. One of Bradford’s close friends, Jacque White, said, “I can see a lot of Parker’s influence in the book in what Melissa says and expresses and I just think it’s a great comfort for anyone who has suffered any kind of loss.”

Annual hike honors teen killed in tragic accident

Parker’s sister says her brother left behind a message in death that all can live by.

“His friends were from very different backgrounds, very different walks of life and that’s a very inspiring thing that most people should have, but he actually lived that,” Claire Bradford said.

Melissa Bradford will sign her books, "On Loss and Living Onward" and "Global Mom," about her experiences raising a family in a variety of countries, Saturday afternoon at the Gateway Center Barnes and Noble.

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