Elka Fernandez's mantle serves as a tribute to her late son.

A kindergarten photo shows a beaming JoJo Brandstatt. A hand-carved violin reminds her of the skilled woodworker her teenage son had become. A container with Brandstatt's cremated remains sits in the middle. Nearby is a passage read at the boy's funeral.

"I'm only young once and I intend to make every day a happy one," it states.

"That's what we put in his obituary, because he lived by that saying his whole life," Fernandez said quietly.

It's been a year since a 14-year-old gang member shot the 18-year-old on a West Valley City golf course and left him to die alone in the snow. Time has done little to ease Fernandez's pain -- she still can't talk about her son without crying. But Fernandez, 33, has also been trying to reflect on how her son's life could have turned out differently.

She's taken on a second job so she has less free time to think. She's found a local support group, Parents of Murdered Children, where she can pour out her grief. Every now and then, she hosts a barbecue for her son's friends, where she can keep up to date with their activities and exchange memories.

And she's dealt with court hearings for her son's killers where she's forced to relive both his death and criticisms of his life. Some have blamed her for not steering her son away from the wrong crowd, said Fernandez, adding that she used to agonize over hateful posts left on the message boards of local media Web sites.

Now, she turns a cheek to the criticism and is focused on using her son's death as an example to others to show the heartbreak drugs and gang violence can bring.

She organized an anti-gang and anti-drug rally over the summer and she's eager to do more.

She wants to see more programs aimed at kids who don't fit into the current after-school offerings. She thinks parents need more resources and support to learn what to do when their kids start drifting toward gangs. She plans to organize a barbecue for the West Valley City police department this summer, to thank them for good work on her son's case, but also to bring the community together to talk about how to stop gangs' influence.

By sharing what she described as her own past difficulties with gangs and drugs, along with her son's story, she hopes other mothers will never endure what she has endured.

"I can remember being that young and what grown-ups say, sometimes it goes in one ear and out the other," Fernandez said. "But if only one kid listens; if talking stops one kid from getting killed or one kid from pulling the trigger, then it's worth it."

Fernandez said she tried to encourage her son to avoid some of the hard lessons she had learned herself and watched others make. Brandstatt's biological father spent much of the boy's childhood in prison, leaving Fernandez and Brandstatt's stepfather, Frank Fernandez, to raise him. Brandstatt and his younger sister, Mercedes, were placed in foster care when Brandstatt was 14. Fernandez was fighting a drug addiction, but regained her sobriety and her children two years later.

Fernandez said she warned her son about the dangers of hanging out on the streets and often thinks about the final conversation she had with her son, two days before his murder. The two got into an argument after Brandstatt's principal called his mother to report the teenager had skipped two days of school. Fernandez confronted her son about his truancy.

She knew the boy had already been involved with the juvenile justice system and wanted to keep him from repeating mistakes.

"I said, 'JoJo, you know the rules. You live here, you have to go to school, and you have to look for a job,' " Fernandez recalls.

Angry at his mom, Brandstatt threatened to move. Later, however, the boy went to his mother's workplace to apologize.

Fernandez said she then told her son to think about where he might end up if he moved out.

"I said, 'JoJo I don't want to see you in trouble. I don't want to see you get killed. If something happens, I'm the one who has to live with it, without you,' " Fernandez said.

A few hours later, Brandstatt called his mother back to tell her he'd like to move back in with her in her Salt Lake City apartment. He said he'd been in contact with his school and made arrangements to make up the days he'd missed. He asked his mom if it was OK if he stayed at his girlfriend's house through the week. Fernandez agreed, and Brandstatt told his mom he would see her in a few days.

He never made it home.

The night before he died, Brandstatt sent a text message to Fernandez. It read, "goodnight."

The next day, West Valley City police officers knocked on Fernandez's door. She knew her son was dead before they told her the news.

Court testimony given by two people who witnessed Brandstatt's shooting revealed that the boy asked his killers if he could call his mom to say goodbye as he stood on the golf course hill with a gun pointed at him. He didn't get to make the phone call.

Fernandez is haunted by what her son's final thoughts might have been.

"I can see him standing there, thinking 'My mom told me this could happen,' " she said.

Fernandez recently became a board member for Parents of Murdered Children and wants to reach out to others who find themselves in her situation. The group is the only counseling she has received since her son's murder. She does not have health insurance and the Utah Office of Crime Victim Reparations denied her assistance after deciding Brandstatt contributed to his own death by getting into the car that would later lead him to his death.

Fernandez gathered with other supporters at the golf course where Brandstatt died on Friday evening. She originally wanted to go alone, to quietly look at the surroundings her son saw during his final moments alive.

But too many people still ache over Brandstatt's absence and wanted to participate in a vigil, she said.

Fernandez takes solace in good memories of her son. She listens to rap music he recorded and reads his poetry. Brandstatt aspired to go to college and wanted to be a computer technician, she said.

Brandstatt's sister, Mercedes, now 18, gave birth to a son two weeks after her brother's murder. The baby's middle name is "Lee," the same name as his slain uncle.

Going through her son's poetry after he died, one poem in particular struck Fernandez. The words take on a different meaning now that Brandstatt is gone.

"He wrote: I don't know why there's so much hate. Other people always controlling your fate. You should be proud to walk with your head held high. Even though you are forced to watch your mom cry," Fernandez recites from memory.

"What was he thinking when he wrote that? Did he know something bad was going to happen?"

mrogers@sltrib.com