LEANDER, Texas — Three months after her 16-year-old son, Zarek McMeekin, died from fentanyl poisoning, Martha Ledezma still enters his room that the family turned into a memorial for him.
"A lot of my son's friends wanted to visit him and since we don't have a gravesite, obviously, because he was cremated, they come here, you know, to be close to him," Ledezma said. "And then they leave little notes for him in the mailbox that we have right there."
The friends do it to connect, to pay their respects and to sit and reflect.
RELATED: 'There's no words' | Family mourns Leander HS student who died from suspected fentanyl poisoning
Looking at McMeekin's photos, his girlfriend, Ella, also looks back.
"I just wish that we would have made more photos and do more stuff together," Ella said. "If I would have known that I would only have three months with him, there's so much stuff that I would have done. We were talking about what we were going to name our kids when we were gonna get older. We were just talking about stuff in the future."
A future that was taken away after McMeekin died in December. On March 21, U.S. Marshals and the Cedar Park Police Department arrested Kreli Haynes on a warrant from the Williamson County Sheriff's Office.
Haynes is accused of supplying fentanyl to McMeekin and has been charged with murder in connection with his death. The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill that allows prosecutors to charge someone who manufactures or distributes fentanyl with murder.
The Williamson County Sheriff's Office also confirmed that its deputies have made two murder arrests since the law changed surrounding fentanyl-related crimes.
"You took our son. I know nobody's perfect, but he was barely starting. He was just going to start his life. He had so much to offer, so much love, just happiness all around," Ledezma said.
The family's focus now is on raising awareness. Ledezma and Zarek McMeekin's father, Joseph McMeekin, said they talk to their coworkers and younger kids about the dangers of fentanyl while also passing out Narcan, a drug that can be used to save someone suffering an opioid overdose.
"It affects so many other people that loved the person, and now they lost it because of a pill," Ledezma said.
The family is doing its part to help other families and avoid the question of "what if?"
"What would he have done? What [would] his life be like? Just how happy would he be? What kind of father would he be?" Ledezma said.