The ghostly memorial sits on the side of 23rd in Wilmington, right by the airport. There's no shoulder.
It's a tall road bicycle, painted all white, a plaque affixed to it with simple words:
This Ghost Bike is dedicated to Dashiell Titus Parker,
1/07/88 - 10/07/18
"Dash Loves You."
He was an avid photographer, a devoted family member and friend — a lanky, tall man with arms that would wrap his friends and family in unforgettable hugs, according to his mother Shelly O'Rourke. "I know everybody says this about dead loved ones, but he was just amazing," she said. "He was just that kind and sensitive boy, since he was tiny, just a beautiful light. He loved unconditionally. His social media profile was always 'Dash loves you'. He signed his driver's license with a heart."
A wall in the family's home is dedicated to Dash's photography, and includes his own bicycle, cast to the side, lights still on, abandoned as he dashed away to take a photo. "It reminds me of how often his bike would just be tossed aside as he ran to take a photograph. And I'm so happy he got that shot, because it's what he did. It's like, 'Oh, I gotta get the shot. Let me toss my bike down and go do that.'"
He had a special way of winning the trust of his subjects. At 7, he spent hours at the zoo winning the trust of one particular chimpanzee to get the right photo, Shelly said. And then there's the photos of his family and friends — including one of his sister, Hattie Haines.
"I think it's kind of heartbreaking, that you see a light in her there that went away for a really long time after he died," Shelly said of the picture. "It's a carefreeness and happiness and safeness that — it just gets destroyed when your protector is no longer with us. But I do love that photo, because to me, it's both of them."
Shelly said Dash's death was preventable.
"It was completely avoidable. This beautiful young man who did not have the time to get married and have children and live a full life," she said. "He never got that opportunity, because of people not paying attention, because of not truly understanding the importance of driving a multi-ton machine down a highway, and how incredibly dangerous that is to everyone."
Dash was killed by a garbage truck soon after Hurricane Florence. It happened on 23rd Street — he was 30 years old, and died instantly. Shelly placed the ghost bike there a year after his passing.
O'Rourke said her son's death has derailed her family, because he played such a tremendous role in each individual member's life.
"It's weird. It's like the sun going out, right, and you're just going to learn to live in the dark," she said. To her family, it's important to "live more like Dash lived. Because in his absence, we have to try. We can't replace him, but we have to try to make the world a little brighter, we have to give a little more. We have to love unconditionally. We have to live the way Dash lived, so that his 30 years continues on through all of us."
Part of that is the ghost bike: that reminder of his love for all around him at the site of his death.
"In addition to it being a place for us to remember Dash, it's a place to remind everyone how important it is to watch out for bikes, that bicyclists are vulnerable, but they have the right to be in the road," Shelly said. "It's a better way of getting from point A to point B. So we put the ghost bike up to make sure, not only as a memorial, but as a sense of awareness."
Dashiell always had a fascination with ghost bikes. A devoted photographer, he captured many of them in photos while living in New Orleans. That meant Shelly felt she had no choice but to make one for him after his death.
"I do think there should be more ghost bikes," she said. "I think anytime someone dies in an avoidable way, we need to have some sort of awareness. And we don't know when we see a cross on the side of the road or a wreath on the side of what road how that person died, right? The thing about ghost bikes is that we know how that person died, and we can be pretty sure the bicyclist did not hit the car and the driver died."
According to a website dedicated to the ghost bikes, "They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel."
The few ghost bikes in Wilmington represent shattered lives, but there would be a lot more if every cyclist got a memorial. There have been 15 cyclists killed in the streets of New Hanover County between 2007 and 2024, according to NCDOT data.
One on 17th belonged to a young woman named Megan McLellan, killed in 2017, age 20. Safety and Education Chair Tammy Swanson of the Terry Benji Bicycling Foundation says McLellan was riding on the cross-city trail when she passed in front of a waiting semi-truck that hadn't moved in five minutes. The driver started up in the exact moment she went in front of his vehicle.
"He ran her over, unfortunately, and she died," Swanson said. "But then they did arrest him. They did charge him with failure to see."
Swanson believes safety is a shared responsibility — cyclists need to protect themselves and be predictable, and drivers need to do everything in their power to keep riders and pedestrians safe.
"These people that are on bikes, are somebody's family member. There's this girl. She was a daughter. She had just gotten married just weeks before she was killed," she said. "So when you see a white ghost bike on the side of the road, ask yourself, 'Am I being a safe driver?' You know, nobody wants to be that person. Nobody wants to be that person that takes the life of somebody else, no matter whose fault it is, nobody wants to be that person."
Disclosure notice: Shelly O'Rourke is a member of WHQR's board of directors, which has no say in editorial decisions.
