It Only Gets Harder | Chicago, IL

Our youth reporter, Taylor Holt, felt the effects of gun violence on her family when her 16-year-old cousin, Blair Holt, was shot and killed in crossfire while riding on a public bus after school. Although she had watched her family grieve the loss of this talented honor student, she hadn’t felt the direct impact until she set out to interview her aunt, and other grieving families, throughout Chicago.

Something that no one except a grieving parent can understand is that the grief over a lost child only gets harder. As time passes, the shock wears down and a parent is left with the reality that their child is never coming back. And when your child is killed as a result of gun violence, it becomes hard not to imagine how that child might have suffered or to feel angry that their life was taken so quickly and senselessly.

After speaking with her aunt, Annette, and several other grieving mothers, Taylor began to realize that gun violence not only affects the person killed, but it affects their family members and friends for the rest of their lifetimes. And while families and friends are grieving, the community suffers. It becomes harder to work and to socialize. If a parent has other children, those children suffer from both the loss of a sibling and the emotional absence of their parent.

Nothing gets easier when a mother loses her child to gun violence. This is true for every mother and every murdered child across this country. Which means there are, on average, nearly 40 mothers every single day who begin a lifelong grieving process for a child who is shot and killed in the United States.