MINNEAPOLIS — As spring slowly creeps in across Minnesota, Sophie Hortman is thinking about trips to the garden center with her mother, Melissa Hortman.

It’s the first legislative session without the former Minnesota House DFL leader, who was shot killed in her home with her husband, Mark Hortman, last June. For Sophie and her brother, Colin Hortman, it’s the first spring without their parents.

They’re finding comfort remembering the Hortmans’ love of baking or reflecting on countless hours spent watching their dogs play together. Not being able to go to Bachman’s together for springtime plant shopping, Sophie said, brings her parents’ absence into focus.

The big moments, like her brother’s recent wedding, “hit harder,” she said in a recent interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune. “But the little stuff, day to day, it definitely creeps in.”

Ten months on from their parents’ deaths, Sophie said she’s found herself writing about the little moments she shared with her parents, whom she called her “best friends.” Colin said he’s seeing a therapist and visited his parents’ house to cook dinner and bake a cake.

“I’m just trying to tap into that — do what my heart thinks is right and see where the journey takes me," Colin said.

The two are also watching this session as lawmakers weigh how to memorialize their parents — and their mother’s two decades in Minnesota politics, including more than six years as speaker of the House. While a park, statue or building named for Melissa and Mark Hortman may soon stand as a symbol for what Minnesota lost, to Colin, Melissa and Mark Hortman were parents first.

“My dad would make a sourdough bread every time he knew Sophie and I were coming to the house,” Colin said, “and my mom was the kind of person that would go on a disco ski where she’d throw in her headphones and listen to ’70s and ’80s music.”

“They were just so down to earth,” he said, “and just the kindest, gentlest, most loving people and best parents a kid could ask for.”

Sophie said “they were normal people.”

“They were just good people who wanted to make the world a better place,” she said, “and that’s really what I hope people remember.”

She said while it’s strange to think about buildings or memorials being named for her parents, she recognizes that “they matter in the long arc of history.”

“It’s important for me to remember that my memory of them is not the only memory that exists,” Sophie said. “They exist as more than just my parents who we lost. They exist also as public figures and also frankly historical figures at this point.”

Proposals to remember the Hortmans

As lawmakers discuss options to honor the Hortmans, the nature of the alleged crime is something Rep. Ginny Klevorn, DFL-Plymouth, said is important to keep in mind.

Vance Boelter, who is charged in their killings, had a list of Democratic politicians and supporters of abortion rights that he planned to target, according to prosecutors. Boelter is also charged with shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. They survived their injuries.

“We are at a time when we have suffered the most heinous crime against our body — not only to our dear friend Melissa Hortman, Mark Hortman and their family, but also to the body itself,” Klevorn said in March.

Klevorn sponsored a proposal to spend up to $800,000 from existing funds for the renovation of the State Office Building to build a memorial garden and statue. The measure has passed through two House committees.

One of the first bills that passed the Minnesota House this year would rename a community solar project Melissa Hortman helped establish in her honor. Despite helping to shepherd massive policy changes through the Minnesota House, including paid family medical leave and free school meals, the community solar project was the accomplishment featured prominently on Melissa Hortman’s social media page.

House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska, whose sister was “part of the same group of nerds” in high school with Hortman, known then as “Missy,” encouraged fellow representatives to think of the Hortmans’ family and friends ahead of the vote on the proposal, which passed unanimously.

“She carried a deep respect for the seriousness of the work that we do,” said Niska, of Anoka. “That example is one that I hope each one of us learns from and carries with us with our own service to this great state.”

Proposals to rename part of Hwy. 610 and rename the State Office Building are also moving through the Legislature, as is a bill to establish a working group on creating the Melissa and Mark Hortman Memorial State Park on the grounds of the Minnesota Capitol.

Colin attended the groundbreaking when Hwy. 610 was connected to Interstate 94 in Maple Grove. He had just received a camera for his birthday and took photos that found their way into one of his mom’s campaign literature pieces. That road is how the family went shopping or traveled to swim meets, Sophie said.

“It’s of course a road that is full of memories,” Sophie said, “but also something that she worked really hard to accomplish for her constituents, and I think that’s a really beautiful thing.”

Sophie said it’s important that proposals to honor her parents do good for the world or serve as spaces for people to gather.

“I think these spaces do really reflect what was important to my parents and how they moved through the world,” she said.

Remembering their parents

Colin hoped Minnesotans would remember Melissa and Mark Hortman for the ways they lived. He said his mother would want to be remembered “as someone who stood up for our environment.”

“For my dad, going on bike rides through state parks and exploring more of nature, maybe playing a game of pool with your buddies you haven’t seen in a long time,” Colin said.

He quoted the prayer Melissa Hortman carried in her wallet, of St. Francis of Assisi: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

“Whatever way people think they’re bringing peace into this world and helping their community out are good ways to memorialize them,” Colin said.

But both Sophie and Colin noted their parents were not ones to seek attention. Melissa Hortman was known as a well-prepared leader who put her head down and got to work.

Colin said his mom might say of the proposals: “This is all a bit much.”

“She was not one for the spotlight,” Colin said. But both she and Mark Hortman would be “deeply honored.”

“They would know the significance of what happened and how abnormal this is and how we need to remember it because it’s a part of history,” Colin said, “and we have to learn from history. Otherwise, it will repeat itself.”

He hopes memorializing his parents will not only help the state grieve the tragedy but also make people “keep grounded in the rhetoric we use.” Colin said his mother disagreed with people respectfully and taught him to treat others well.

“We need to be reminded that the words that we use matter and that when we don’t treat people with dignity, when we treat them with contempt and we call people names, it justifies violence,” he said.

For Sophie, the months since her parents’ killings have given her hope in Minnesotans.

“People, in the wake of my parents’ death and in everything that’s been happening,” Sophie said, “have really been turning to their neighbors, looking out for each other, holding each other with care and love.”

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