Non­fic­tion

Tom­my’s Field: Love, Loss, and the Goal of a Lifetime

  • From the Publisher
September 1, 2023

In April 2018, Nik­ki and Doug Mark’s per­fect­ly healthy twelve-year-old son, Tom­my, went to sleep one night and nev­er woke up. They’re still not exact­ly sure why. Dev­as­tat­ed, Nik­ki embarked on an uncon­ven­tion­al jour­ney to cre­ate a lega­cy for Tom­my and to heal her heart. She cre­at­ed a plan to trans­form neglect­ed land in a Los Ange­les pub­lic park into a state-of-the-art ath­let­ic field, hon­or­ing Tommy’s love of soc­cer and shar­ing his spir­it of play with oth­ers. After fam­i­ly, friends, and LA’s soc­cer com­mu­ni­ty band­ed togeth­er to raise over a mil­lion dol­lars for the project, park neigh­bors resis­tant to change threat­ened to derail it. Through­out Nikki’s jour­ney, a remark­able string of inci­dents con­vinced her that her recent­ly depart­ed son was guid­ing her through the process. Ulti­mate­ly, Tommy’s endur­ing spir­it and the beau­ti­ful game he loved taught her how to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges she faced along the way.

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