Sitting here I’m trying to collect my thoughts. I thought I was on the road of learning to live without my son but found myself consumed with a lot of familiar emotions that left me questioning myself, as well as the state of others.
You see in May I received another phone call saying get to the hospital, he’s been shot. When it was for my son, it was one of the most horrible phone calls I ever received in my life time. But to receive another phone call similar like that years later—this time for my nephew, Neal Isaiah Moore—will leave some of you hopeless and paralyzed with fear of the unknown.
That last call made me jump into action and be there to hold the hand of my sister from another mother that has been here for me and my family for years without hesitation. She has walked with me through the good times, the bad times, and always keep it real with me no matter if I was wrong or right.
Waiting at the hospital for her to arrive felt familiar, like a nightmare being played out in my head that I could not escape no matter what I did. There were times I had to walk out of the hospital just to make sure it wasn’t a dream.
As we met with the doctor in the room I felt myself getting weak but pulled it together to be there for my sister. I watched her closely as she sat still and quiet. When she said anything I was happy because I knew she was expressing how she felt.
The rage, the anger, the fear, the calm, and the laughter quickly became silent as we walked towards the corridor leading us to the window to see her son, and our loved one’s lifeless body. In a blink of an eye we stood staring then tears turned into weeps as we tried our best to console yet another mother whose child was taking too soon from her, no matter the age of the child—he was 35—it still is her child and a mother should not have to bury her child.
A lot of times we want to be alright and pretend like nothing affects us. We continue to work, and try to continue living our life as we pretend like we have it all together while inside we are barley holding on. We laugh but behind closed doors we cry ourselves to sleep at night if we can sleep. We hold intelligent conversations with others but question ourselves when we are alone. When asked how are we doing we hurry up and say fine out of our mouths but in our heads we are screaming I miss my child, why did he/she have to go, why did they take him/her from me. Our thoughts have become a long run on sentence with no end in sight.
We forget the simple things that we should be doing for our own health like eating, sleeping, communicating with others as we become our child’s detective to solve the case. We can’t concentrate and grow less patient when it comes to others, and angrier each time we think about our murdered child. As all of these feelings consumes us at once, the smallest thing will unhedged us such as the food isn’t getting hot fast enough then we find ourselves screaming and inconsolable as we let out one of the biggest cries you could never imagine and scaring our loved ones because they don’t know what to do for you.
Although this murder was not my child, it was our child. Another senseless murder that has been committed and the murderers are roaming carefree amongst us in the community, riding the bus, going to our schools, and working at our jobs.
Each time I think about my sister, my confidante, walking this walk that I’ve been forced to walk it feels me with sadness now that she is forced to walk this walk with me.
Kimberly Kamara is the author of “Where’s My Daddy,” a children’s book aimed at kids who’ve lost a parent to murder. The book was inspired by her family’s continuing journey of grief after her son, Niam Johnson-Tate, lost his life to gun violence on July 5, 2017. Kimberly has two daughters and lives in Germantown with her husband.
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