For parents, losing your child can bring unimaginable pain that many have never felt before. But for those who have, living after the loss can be the hardest thing they've ever done.

In North Syracuse, Kersten Hirsch spends a lot of time outside with his family, tending to his garden. It runs in the family.

Hirsch's son, Jordan, had a green thumb and a love for helping people, eventually becoming a reconstructive surgeon.

"He loved gardening. He had his own garden in Auburn," said Hirsch.

But those dreams never got a chance to bloom.

"He said he had an accident and I said, 'OK, when can I pick him up?' I mean, that's all I ever thought," Hirsch said. "He says, 'I'm sorry to tell you he didn't make it.' You probably could have heard me screaming all the way to Syracuse Downtown. And that was it. Just like that, life changes."

Nearly 10 years ago, 19-year-old Jordan was driving home from Binghamton University. Driving along Route 20 near Auburn, his car trailed off the road and crashed in a ditch. 

"Now I'm focusing on one subject, the one that I believe killed him — the fatigued driving," said Hirsch. 

It's not clear what caused the crash, but Hirsch believes Jordan fell asleep at the wheel. 

"I can be the happiest guy right now and then, all of a sudden I hear something, it could be a song, it could be a smell, it could be somebody saying something, and they don't mean to trigger me, but to them it's not a trigger, and you go from happy to a complete breakdown," said Hirsch. 

Almost a decade later, he is trying to bring awareness to fatigued driving, hoping to prevent others from suffering the loss he did. In that mission, he's trying to grow something beautiful out of his pain. 

"I can't go to his [grave]. I can't go there," he said. "I know it's only a body, but I don't like going there, and he's only six feet away from me."

So instead, he made a garden of the site where Jordan crashed. 

"This is where I can show a little bit of what he liked doing," Hirsch said. 

Tulips, roses, rhubarb, peaches — a true-to-type site from father to son.

"If that's where he passed away, then I always sometimes feel that's where I'm closest to him," Hirsch said.