No mother should be burying their children, and no mother deserves to deal with their son’s murder. Unfortunately for Laureen Flood Rivers, she had to face the heavy burden of losing her son to gun violence in 2003. In this episode, she looks back on her story of grief, isolation, and coping after the brutal death of her son, as well as how it shook and ultimately transformed her relationship with God. She recounts how she let go of anger and found inner peace after forgiving those responsible for his murder. Laureen also emphasizes the urgent need to take action, especially from church communities, to finally put an end to the vicious cycle of gun and gang violence.
I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.
Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Coping With A Son’s Murder With Laureen Flood Rivers
My guest is Ms. Laureen Flood Rivers. Hi, Laureen.
Hi, Minister Tina.
Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?
Just the Minister Tina, your face. I can’t help it.
That’s okay. Some of you may not know that I’m an ordained minister, and that is nothing that I have a problem with. I’ll actually explain that. Thank you for making that point of conversation. When Widowhood Real Talk with Tina was started, it was created with the intention to meet people at their point of need in their grief. I know that sometimes when people are grieving, their relationship with their faith is shot to trash, and I did not want that to be a hindrance.
When my pastor and I spoke about me starting this nonprofit, we spoke about the idea that, one, everyone is not a Christian, and I understand that. I didn’t want the idea that I am an ordained minister underneath the Christian faith to be a hindrance for someone, that they could not feel love and support when they interact with me. Because if Minister Tina came first, that’s what they would see. Not only would they hear the word minister, they would probably think about every minister that relates to their past. Whether that was a positive or negative experience, it would become standoffish.
The intention was this nonprofit is not faith-based. Mentioning my own personal story, my faith in God is the only way that I have been able to endure this great loss. Yes, I am an ordained minister, and she is. Laureen knows how relationships started in that particular part of my life. That is how our relationship is. I don’t have a problem with it because I know that that’s what God has called me to do.
Losing A Son
What I know is true in me walking in my calling, whether the title is upfront, the love is felt. That is what I believe that people are supposed to receive from God, not a title, not this concept of being judged, but meeting people at their place of need and, in that place of need, filling that relationship with God. People will ask me, like, “Like how, for real? Like you have not lost all your mind?” And I will start with this, a lot of times, people are mad and upset with God, and they’re holding that inside. I have learned from the people that I’ve interacted with that until they’re able, to be honest, that they’re mad with God, they can be stuck in a place where they are not honestly dealing with their grief in all aspects of it. What would you say to that part?
My relationship with you started in the heart of my grief over the loss of my son.
Your son’s name?
Jihad. We called him Haddi. His name is Jihad Nasir Rivers, and we call him Haddi. Jay Rock, he had a lot of, he’s my baby. I’m the youngest child of five.
We’re going to go with Haddi today?
We’re going to go with Haddi because that’s how everybody related to him. When I met you at Shawnee Church, I didn’t have a great relationship with my home church, which was about an hour and a half away from where I’m located in New Jersey. I love my bishop. I love him. He was the first male father figure, the first male that I actually reverenced in my life was a bishop. I couldn’t talk to him. I thought I could talk to him after, I’m going to say the death. My son was murdered, and it’s clear that he didn’t just up and die. He died at someone else’s hand. It was hard for me to understand why God chose to take my son.
Did it start with, “How did God let this happen to me?”
Yes. It was a lot.
I saw you trying to process that. It was like, “God, I’ve been serving you. God, I’ve been faithful. God, I’ve been doing this. How did this happen to my baby?”
My question was, “God, have I been serving you right? Have I been serving you in spirit and truth?” I was Muslim, and I chose Jesus as my Lord and Savior. It was a transition for my family. My children, I started them off, they just knew Muslim. I believe that I became Muslim because my brother was Muslim.
I don’t believe that I chose it for my relationship with God or a god. I think that it was just you following who is into religion. I had to find something at the time, and my mother didn’t display that, but anyway, let me get back to how I was feeling about God. The night that my son was murdered, I have a lot of different clips of memory about that night. I also had an experience with God, myself, and one of the members of my church. The Friday before my son was killed, I saw him. I saw his spirit. I was anointing people in the neighborhood where he hung out.
He pressed me to bring him the blessed oil we received every year from our church, and he ran out and he called me to my knees. He was so determined that the oil was going to save that hood—all the people in the hood. When I gave him the oil, I had to anoint him with it. We had this prayer that we did: anoint your head, your ears, your mouth, your heart, and your feet. When I did him that night, the next person stepped up and asked, “Mommy, do me,” and it was over. It was just an experience that only myself and Michelle Bryant, who was Cooper at the time, can remember. Over those three days, God prepared me for his death, I believe that. On Friday, he died on the morning of the 29th of July.
What day of the week was that?
It was a Tuesday morning, I’m almost sure, in 2003. We attended the wedding of our assistant pastor on a Friday night. I promised to bring him this oil. When we left the reception after dancing in these heels, we were barefoot, and I was driving Michelle’s car. I just pulled up on the block looking for him. There’s a bunch of people out there, but he wasn’t out there at first. They ran and got him. That’s how things work in that hood.
You could hear, “Mommy’s here, Mommy’s here, Mommy’s here,” like going around. Because they sold drugs there, they did a little bit of everything in that little area right there. He came around the corner. The first thing he said was, “You want my oil?” I was like, “Yeah, Michelle got a box of oil in the trunk.” I went to give him his oil. I had a big one, the other ones were like little small vials with little black tops on them. I gave it to him. I handed it to him. He was like, “I don’t want that. You got to put it on me.” I was like, “I don’t have any shoes on,” whatever. He leaned down on the car. We were on a one-way street; I was on the driver’s side. I pulled on the left.
I had the door open, and he leaned down on the curb, and I anointed his head, and I anointed his ears. I anointed his mouth. I anointed his heart. I was leaning out of the car to do his feet. When I leaned out of the car to do his feet, I was leaning all the way down. I sat straight back up, I felt a little dizzy. When he got ready to step away from the car, “Hi, Mommy, do me. Hi, Mommy.” It was over and over so much so that the police pulled up and were like, “What’s going on?” or whatever.
I told that officer, “Get in line. We’re out here anointing people. What? You want some oil?” We even gave them oil that night. It was two officers. While I was anointing everybody else, I threw my feet out of the car because it got a little crazy to be going to the side. Jihad was standing up against the wall, I’m going to call it the graffiti wall because there was a brick wall on that block. It had different things written on it, but he leaned on the wall, put his foot up, and I think one arm was behind his head, and he was just watching me, just like approval, shaking his head. When I was anointing somebody and I sat up, I saw him, like I said, I felt dizzy.
I saw him standing there, and I saw the little, not a big smile, but like an approval type of “I’m happy with, go ahead, Mommy,” that kind of thing. Michelle had walked around the car by then. When I leaned up this time and I looked at him, I saw him above himself. You know how you get dizzy, blurred? I saw him above himself. I shook my head and I looked at Michelle, and she was staring at me. I said, “Did you see that?” She said, “Yeah.” We just left it alone. We left after doing that. We didn’t have any more oil. It was a box of maybe 90. That many bottles of oil got given away in that area.
That’s Friday night?
That’s Friday night.
What happened Tuesday, the day that he was murdered?
I’m going to have to go through the days because I’m telling you, there was a preparation. Friday night, Saturday morning, we were supposed to have a conference at our church that Michelle and I were supposed to be at. When we were driving home, Michelle said, “Bishop’s going to kill us like that, you know. He told us don’t go out there without covering and start laying our hands on people. He’s always said spirits and demons are things, when they fly out of somebody, they got to fly into somebody.”
That Saturday morning, Michelle and I were sick. Sick, both of us. We had a flu or something. I didn’t get out of bed Saturday morning. Saturday night, I got a frantic phone call in the middle of the night from Jihad. “I’m down here at the hospital. They won’t let me see him. They won’t let me see him.” They had a drive-by shooting in the same spot where we were standing. He had a friend, his name was Pierre, who got shot in the arm with something that took his elbow out. It was bad.
He was the only one who got shot, but there were other people. My son was standing there, he got grazed, according to what they told me. My godson—they were all standing out there, and that drive-by, Jihad wasn’t standing right there. He was on the other side of the street looking. When he called me, his words to me were, “Yeah, Ma, I’m leaving. I saw some things. I can’t trust anybody here. What are you talking about?” “They won’t let me see Pierre.” I’m like, “Calm down.” They’re saying that he’s not at the hospital. I said, “He just got shot.” They put him in the hospital under an alias. That’s what happens when somebody gets shot, and they don’t know who shot him. They don’t know whether they’re going to try to come finish the job or whatever. When they put him in the hospital, they do so.
I talked to him and got him calmed down. “Get away from the hospital. They’re not going to let you see him, whatever, call his family or whatever you can do. You got to get away from the hospital,” because he’s like, “They just want to lock me up,” that kind of thing. “I need to see him.” That was Saturday night. He gave away his oil that Saturday. I was going on Sunday to a college to help one of my friends, Pierre, who by the way signed his son into college. He’s a Haitian guy that I was dating at the time.
We took his son. They were going to put him in a summer program for a month to get him ready for college. I told Jihad that when I came back, I would bring it to him because he said that to me that Saturday night. That’s what they said, I know oil. He was dependent on this oil. “I gave my oil away.” “No problem. I’ll bring you some.”
We came from the college. We stopped where he was staying, which was his girlfriend’s house. We pulled the car up and they called for him to come down. He came downstairs. He had no shirt on, he had on jeans, and had his locks up in the air. He came over to the car. I gave him the oil and said a few words to him. “What are you doing today? Don’t be out here tonight.”
Like warnings. “Don’t be out here tonight. We can talk about what you wanted to talk about later.” He said it was some people in his circle that he couldn’t trust because he saw how they moved prior to this drive-by. He thought they had something to do with it because they went into the hallway with their weapons instead of protecting the people who were out there. Basically, that’s what he said. He told me who it was, and we were going to talk about it. Fine. When I gave him the oil on Sunday, he said he wasn’t going to be out there.
That Tanya’s father bought her a car. They were going to the movies, and they were going to be in the house. He was going to come to my house that night and stay at my house. That’s Sunday afternoon, like about 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. I’m sitting in the car with Vanell and Jihad walking away. He gets to the top of the steps, and we’re saying “bye, bye.” We do this real quick to see who gets it done first. We both did it at the same time.
I just watched him standing up there, and then Vanell was like, “What’s the matter?” to me. I say, “Huh?” He said that so many tears were on my shirt. I had a, I’m going to say, an unnatural cry. I didn’t even feel that I was crying. When he said it to me, I said, he said, “What’s wrong? What is the matter?” I said to him, “I just feel like I’m not going to see him again,” and then he said, “You’re crying.”
I touched my face, so many tears. I believe that Vanell and Michelle were placed where they were placed that weekend as a witness to what I was experiencing, that it wasn’t like a figment of my imagination, that it was an encounter with God in the way that God encounters you. The whole scene, he’s standing here, and his head goes up here. It’s like being cross-eyed and seeing two images, but the images weren’t like this; they were like this. That’s what Michelle and I discussed a little bit going home. Vanell and I discussed. He said, “I’ve never seen anybody cry like that. My shirt was soaked, and I never even saw a tear.”
I didn’t know. I don’t think he saw it either, because he was still smiling at me and still doing. His face would have changed. He would have become alarmed. I really don’t think Jihad saw it from the distance that we were. I just don’t think he saw it because, like I said, if he saw tears coming down my face like that, he’d have run back to the car and said something to me. That was the last time I saw him physically, on Sunday. He did not come and stay at my house on Sunday night. I’m going to say he died Monday night going into Tuesday morning. I’m not really sure. I know it was Tuesday, the 29th. I know that because I buried him. I had his funeral so very quickly. We had disturbed people.
The Night Of Murder
We started with one thing. What were your instant feelings about your relationship with God when Haddi was murdered? Your initial feelings?
My initial feelings. I never even thought about God when it first happened. I didn’t think about God. I thought about when I first saw him and probably when I got to the scene where he got shot. I got a phone call. I’m asleep. One-something in the morning.
Let’s go to the events on Tuesday.
I was asleep, and I had a cell phone and a house phone, and they both went off at the same time. I’m asleep. I wake up, and I don’t know what to reach for first. I picked up my house phone and I heard somebody screaming, “He got shot, he got shot. Mommy, mommy, he got shot. Haddi got shot.” I hear that on that phone. I reached for the other phone, the cell phone, and got somebody else screaming on this, but this was a male. This is a female. I’m like, “Calm down. What’s going on?” “We on Ellis and Springfield. Jihad just got shot.” That was my goddaughter, who is also my unrelated. She’s related to my pastor’s family. Again, I’m waking up out of my sleep. The first thing I do is go running down the hall. I lived in an apartment building with my friend, Cheryl, because I didn’t have my car to take me there.
Probably not in his headspace that you needed to anyway.
I know I wasn’t in a good headspace because I had on a nightgown that was not fit for me banging on her door and her opening the door. She had people in her house playing cards. I wasn’t really dressed, but she looked at me and said, “That’s fine.” We threw, she walked me down the hall. I threw something on, like a jacket over it. It’s July 29th, almost August. I just threw something over it. I can’t remember what I threw over it, but I still had the bedclothes on under it.
We just jetted. I jumped on the parkway. It’s two exits. When we got there, it was a big Springfield Avenue. When we got there, it was blocked off on one side. We had to go around the block, and they had the gate down. He was killed in the restaurant. We went around the corner.
They closed the gate in front but didn’t think to close the side gate. It’s on a corner. I jumped out of the car, and I went running, and I went to look. They had police tape here. That was preventing me from going around. I looked in the window, and I could see somebody laying there, the whole sheet covering him thing. I could see the bottom of his shoes. He and one of his friends did artwork on the bottom of Timbs. That was the signature thing they did. I knew that was the shoes with his artwork, but my head said, somebody got on his boots. I need to see. They wear each other’s stuff all the time.
It’s something about whenever possible to visualize that for yourself because, like you said, the mind wants to do something else. The mind wants to run as far away as possible from the reality that they are no longer breathing in this world.
Exactly. I just decided that I needed to see for myself. I went to go around the corner, went through the police tape, and the detective came out. He said, let me, by first name basis, Laureen, you can’t go. You can’t see him. I’m like, why? They’re saying that’s my son.
I need to see. I need to see. He’s like, it’s Jihad. He told me. He said, I’ve already identified him, and we have to just wait for the medical exam, and we can’t move him. He’s pronounced. He started saying all that. He said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” That’s what he said, but it is him, whatever. I said, “You’re not going to let me see him? Basically, you are not going to let me see him. I need to see him. Are you kidding me?” Those ones just let me see that that’s my son, my child. Let me see. They wouldn’t let me see him.
He started walking, guiding me. I didn’t break down. I didn’t do any of that. I was pissed off that he didn’t let me see him, and then I started looking around, everybody that was standing out there, like 65% of them called me mommy. I’m saying, did they just get here? I started thinking, my head went straight to investigate. I remember yelling, not saying, who shot Jihad? Who the hell shot my son? Just looking at all these people, the detective said, that’s where we need your help.
What year is this?
2003. Once, like I said, by that time it’s going on 2:00 in the morning, and it’s people outside like it’s 2:00 in the afternoon. It’s just a lot of people out. It’s summertime. It’s just a lot of people out. This chicken joint was probably the only thing open. It was open all night. Most of the time they were putting those hoods in.
Jihad wasn’t the first person to die there and wasn’t the last either, because that would be the spot late at night where everybody is at. They had many shootings there on that whole avenue, but Jihad was born in that neighborhood.
When you think about his murder, is it still as painful and raw today as it was then?
No.
Oftentimes people will ask, does it get any better?
What I can say about the moment when I scream, “Who shot my son? Who killed my son?” I took a deep breath, and I don’t think that I exhaled that breath until about two years ago.
What happened in two years to make you finally exhale?
I made it through the month of July and never recognized the date until somebody said it to me. I’m going to say more like four years ago. When they said it to me, I realized that I didn’t think about it. That was impressive. Oh God, here comes July. I just didn’t think about it. When I realized that, I knew that it was well with my soul. It took a long time, but not that I’ve gotten over it, but it let me know that I got through it. I will never get over outliving my child, period. It’s just unnatural. It’s an unnatural thing for any parents to bury their child. It’s just not natural.
It is an unnatural thing for any parent to bury their child. Share on XGrieving Journey
I would agree. You said it took two years for you to come to this place. What were some of the initial parts?
It was longer than two years. I’m saying from now, four years ago. He died in 2003. This year was the 21st year of his death. He was 21 when he died. He was supposed to be born three days before my 21st birthday, and we lived on 21st Street when he was born.
This episode is going to be aired on November 21st to stay in line with that. Can you think of 2 or 3 things that were very important in that road to get to where you are now, or where you found yourself four years ago? What are some things that served you well?
One of the things that served me well comes back to you. Jihad’s death and grief made me very ill. I was sick unto death when I was in Pennsylvania when I met you.
Grief will do that. We don’t talk about it enough. Grief can, one, make it impossible to sleep. If you’re not sleeping, your body’s not rejuvenated. Your body’s not resting. You can be angry. That tension in your body has caused disease.
Fibromyalgia, diabetes, you name it.
Anxiety.
I have neuropathy.
You have a cardiac situation. All of those things can come from grief. People’s health starts diminishing. That is actually why we do the Walk for Love in August, because when you start grieving, you isolate, you disconnect from society, and your health is on the last bit of stuff. We’re sometimes eating to self-medicate, not eating, drinking, or using drugs.
I did that. I did the whole drinking thing.
Your body is going, “I cannot make good sales with this.”
That’s right.
You’re going to be trashed. Just the idea. I just wanted to expound on that a little bit because our health can suffer tremendously while grieving.
When I was grieving and isolated, when it first happened, I went on the road. I traveled everywhere. Driving just did. I drove across this country. I drove everywhere. I would see everybody who was not connected to me in my life at the time that Jihad died. I was not only angry with God, I was angry with my family. I was angry with the world, but mainly a lot of people who were connected to him because there was a mystery. When you don’t know the people who killed your child or killed your family member.
It’s a lot of unfinished business.
I listened to people talk about PTSD. I came from Essex County, New Jersey. There is as much murder in Essex County, New Jersey, as in any war that this country has, anywhere for American citizens to be dying. These young people are desensitized to death and killing. I’m talking about 2003, and it’s even worse today. I was looking at this memorial page. I was fighting people for putting my son on it for years. That year, I realized that I didn’t dread July because I made it through the 29th and didn’t even know I was in the 29th.
I decided to put him on that memories wall for people who died of gun violence. I was ready. I didn’t want any, somebody. I shook up a Pepsi and sprayed it on some people in Irvington. That’s where he died, Irvington, New Jersey, because they put his picture in, “Rest in peace.” I didn’t want that because there was no rest or peace related to his dying.
Do you think that was just a hustle and trying to make money off of his passing?
No, they were trying to honor him, but I didn’t see it that way. I didn’t give them permission to do it.
I want to pause right there. People will do things that they think are helpful, but if they don’t ask the person who they think they’re helping, they won’t know if they’re on point or not.
Exactly. I felt disrespected. Ask me. I wasn’t resting, and I didn’t have any peace.
There’s a lot of clichés or things that people say. You want to talk about the things that have served you well in this process of getting to where you’re at.
I found out that breathing helps your health. When you deep breathe, grief makes you hold your breath.
You’re hyperventilating.
Grief makes you hold your breath. Everything that you come across that gives you a memory, you tighten that breath up more. You never release it completely. All of the toxicity that grief brought me, I was holding it in. I was literally not breathing for fifteen years. I’m going to say like fifteen years. This is 21 years. I’m talking about 5 or 6 years ago when I started getting connected with what I was actually feeling.
I’ve been in therapy. I’ve had two great therapists, one in Pennsylvania and one that was like a clone of her in North Carolina, which is great for me. They were totally different from me. They were young, and they were white women. We had to first get through our differences in order for me to feel comfortable enough to talk to them about personal matters. We talked about the weather, we did a lot of stuff, but it took time. I accepted the fact that I needed counsel. Everybody can’t counsel.
Ministry disappointed me. I’m going to put that in there. It felt more like a brush-off than anything. Whenever I went to express myself, it was like, oh, don’t feel like that. When I say I’m so pissed off with God. I’m just pissed off. Why would God do this to me? What God does that when I express?
Oh, don’t say that. Their fears. I didn’t say I didn’t fear God. I said I was pissed off with God. You are the first minister that I spoke those words to that said, we were in your car, your truck, we were in your car, and you had come to help me do some stuff because the church did a great job getting me set up in my own place in Pennsylvania, and everybody played a role. You came over to take me. I don’t know what you took me to do. I can’t remember exactly that.
What I remember is saying that to you, and you saying to me, “That’s okay. That’s perfectly fine. It’s perfectly fine for you to feel that way. Who wouldn’t feel that way?” That opened up something in me. I was just ready to get out of the church. I felt like a hypocrite going to church. Singing helped me a lot, but you got to fight your way into the choir.
That’s the hard.
Singing helped me, but that moment, I’m going to go back to that moment, opened up something in me that you connected with what I was saying. My experience after my son died was people didn’t want me to say his name. It made them uncomfortable.
That’s the first thing I want people to do.
They didn’t want to listen to my funny stories or my sad stories. They would change the subject. That’s why I was mad with family members. I was so angry with them. I had an experience with some of my family members right after he died during the initial funeral arrangements. I had just moved into where I was, and I was preparing the house because I knew I was going to have a bunch of family. I’m the security in my family’s house. We’re making the funeral arrangements. I look up, and there were certain key family members that weren’t there that I was looking for. The babies, like it was a baby. We didn’t want to bring them because this is probably gang-related, and we’re going to put them in danger. Those words offended me.
Were they true?
They were. They absolutely were. There’s a time. Don’t lie, but say, no, we just got them with the babysitters, or we’ll put them somewhere else because they’re going to be in the way. Do that. Be gentle because remember, I’m your family. I’ve been the protector. If they called me, I came guns blazing, fists and feet flying for my family.
Nobody can deny that, and I felt very unprotected, very. That’s the word I want to use. I wanted to be vulnerable. Those kinds of instances at that moment made me feel like I had to protect myself because nobody else was going to protect me. There was a lot of truth that I couldn’t, and I still haven’t spoken about Jihad’s life and how he was living and what came to my mind. You hear stuff: you live by the gun, you die by the gun. I was angry with him for being where he was or wasn’t or shouldn’t have been, angry with the community that embraces watching people die and seeing who kills them and not telling them who did it. It’s so snitch rule. What in the heck is wrong with you? Snitch. You said you love my son. You call me mommy. You understand? You call me mommy. Just like he did. He called me mommy. You don’t want to talk about who murdered him.
Did you ever come to the person who murdered him?
Literally, not last December before. I always check his name on Facebook and social media to make sure that nobody is using his name or his likeness. One of my sons has taken on his name on Facebook because he has something that Facebook has, a challenger. He has ID and all that that he could show them because I didn’t want people being him on Facebook. I thought I was putting his name in Facebook, and I put it in Google. When I did that, an appeal in the state of New Jersey came up with his name on it. That appeal was one of the young men who was involved in murdering somebody in the same month, like a week or so before my son was killed. I found out through reading all of that.
I got the transcripts; I sent for them. Through reading that trial, I found out why my son was killed and who caused him to be killed, and that’s somebody who he didn’t grow up with because he’s older. My son’s name was Jihad, and the person that this person was sent to kill, a person was sent to kill Jihad. They just had different last names. Through that trial transcript and reading it, I didn’t know these people. In reading it and studying it, I found that the cousin of the other Jihad intentionally pointed my son out as the Jihad that killed their loved one, gang member, whatever you want to call it. That is the reason why he died.
Finding that information out.
18 or 19 years later, first of all, I felt guilty because I broke my relationship with some of his friends who really loved him.
Because you blamed Jihad for it.
Because I held him responsible in certain ways. He had a female friend who went through his pockets after he died. When people told me that, I didn’t know why. She didn’t know whether he was going to make it or not, but I believe that she thought he had a weapon on him, and I was hoping that he did. I encouraged him to protect himself. I don’t know why, but I know she loved him. I know that she loves him. I just didn’t know at that time.
There are two young ladies whose lives changed drastically because they were standing close enough to him to have his blood on them. One of them, her birthday is that day, and she delayed him. He went in there in the restaurant, did what he had to do, and she stopped him and said, “Hottie, it’s my birthday. I want $10.” He didn’t have a change, and he went back to that restaurant to make a change to give her $10.
She’s thinking of the timing of what she did.
The hood blamed her. They said that she set him up. Come to find out, she had nothing to do with it. She was just innocent. Their lives drastically changed, both of them. They both went on a journey, and I believe that his death and their witnessing it had everything to do with the turn that they took. I believe they both went to prison. I haven’t seen them, but I’m told that they’re living pretty good lives. People in that hood wanted to harm them. After my son died, they killed several people.
Thinking this was street justice?
Yes, and killed the person who shot him. I knew who shot him the next day, really into the same day.
Twenty-one years later, what would you tell Laureen that day, knowing where you are now?
It’s not your fault. It was nothing you could have done to change his destiny. That was his walk. That was his life and his death. It wasn’t yours. It didn’t belong to me. He lived a life a certain way. He loved his friends as much as he loved his family.
He was the weirdest kid to some people, but he loved, his loyalty was real. His loyalty to his family, his loyalty to his friends was real. It wasn’t fake. It was a lifestyle. His loyalty was a lifestyle for him. I use that term a lot because that’s what I can tell Laureen today. His life was to, if anything, show me what loyalty really is. That is, loyalty is not a birthright.
It’s just not, especially in our families. You can be as loyal as whatever, and people will betray you every time. He was loyal. He was honest, brutally, and loved. So many people loved him. His funeral spoke for that. We had a service the night before, and I wanted as many people of the faith to be there, and young people were just going over to them to be prayed for. Something I remember about that day that I didn’t get to do.
Jihad had a friend named Tina Brown, and when she came into that church, which is a Baptist church where we had my mom’s funeral, my nephew’s, and my son’s. It’s huge. It used to be a synagogue, and it has the upstairs balcony, and it’s just huge. The ceilings are high. When she came down that aisle and saw him laying in that casket, she let out the loudest, most piercing scream that I had ever heard in my life. All I could think of at that moment was, why didn’t I scream like that? Why didn’t I faint and fall out? It just didn’t happen.
It didn’t happen from looking through that window, seeing him laying, seeing his feet and legs and his sheet. I’ll never forget it. That’s embedded in my brain. I just won’t forget it. It was my experience at the time. I wasn’t thinking about that. Yes, I started doing stuff, which is my nature. I do stuff. I’m a doer. I don’t talk about it, I be about it.
If you were to talk to Laureen that day, what would you tell her to do, being the doer that you are? Knowing what you know now, what would you tell her to do?
I would have told her to go sit down and give yourself some grace.
Going back to mental health, was that something that was talked about in your community, to see a therapist, see somebody for things that were going on?
No, absolutely had never seen it. I had some experience prior to having Jihad as a young person that I really would have, it would have served me well to be going into mental health back then. We had some experiences. I lived through the riots, sleeping on the floor because they were shooting over our heads. I came from in Newark, New Jersey in the 60s during the riots, and where stuff was burnt, whole communities were burnt down and state troopers were out, not state troopers, they called in the National Guard. I have those memories. For those young people from back then, it would have served them well to be with therapists, but it wasn’t talked about.
Coping Skills
You’re absolutely right. The thing that I find, you can tell me, we can experience a lot of hardships in life, and we learn how to make our way through them.
Coping.
The death of a loved one becomes where all those coping skills, they don’t work.
They don’t.
What were some coping skills that you used, that you realized now didn’t serve you?
A relentless investigation. I did things nobody knew I did.
We are not about to talk about that.
No, it was an investigation. I needed to know things that I just found out.
No way you could have made that happen.
No way I could have. I’m telling you, the two young ladies were brought to my house and put in separate rooms. I did the whole detective thing after he died. A young man came and said somebody came to a class and got a teardrop and said that. Because this class was for people who had just got out of prison and they had to report to the college to a class. A young man from our community was in that class.
They had to be there during the week, and this young man who shot Jihad came to that class, and they were talking. This young man heard this conversation and he brought it back to me along with his government name. He had to be on Inmate.com if he just got out of prison. That’s what I did. I wanted the girls who saw it to identify who they saw.
In the investigation, what was another coping skill that you realized?
Didn’t serve me well, doing everything myself, like not allowing anybody to. No, I can’t say I didn’t allow it. I was very disappointed with the assistance that I received in planning his funeral, and his repast. I was hoping and depending on my church to step in and just do it because that’s what I do. I’m the hostess. We just had, I just had a lot of stuff running through my head.
We often expect people to show up.
We show up.
Instead of understanding, they’re only going to show up the way that they know.
The way that they know how they’re only going to do what they know how to do. I was raised in hospitality. My mama was the ultimate hostess.
Often that rolls into our loss. People don’t know how to show up.
They don’t.
Because it’s not been their lived experience, so many people will get disappointed because this person was going to show up. I thought this friend was going to show up, and they didn’t show up. When you go back and consider them, there’s nothing in their repertoire that would make you think they were capable. Our loss is so great that we expect them to miraculously figure it out. The church was disappointed. What are some things in church? What are some things that church people need to know and work on to help somebody this great?
God doesn’t make any mistakes. You don’t tell me, after I just saw this boy laying on the ground with a sheet over him, that God doesn’t make any mistakes. Yes, he did. That’s my baby laying there, so yes, he did. Statements like that.
Going back to time and gentleness. The reality is that God is perfect and God is that. At this moment, that’s not when you lay in that statement that I didn’t make mistakes. Save that for later, but right now, just be present.
Be present. You don’t have to say much.
Say that again.
You don’t have to say much. You don’t have to say anything. I don’t need no clichés. I don’t just be present. Just sit there quietly and be present. When the words I had to choke out were people wanting to talk to me, they didn’t even know I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t freaking breathe. I can’t talk, like when you get ready to cry and get choked up.
You do not have anything to say to a grieving person. You can simply be present and be quiet around them. Share on XHow about that being your constant existence? That’s what it was. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to do some things, which I did. I did what made me comfortable, and then after that, I felt guilty about that. Knowing who the person was and printing out pictures of people of the.
I did exactly what the police do. I did an actual computer-generated lineup and put these two young ladies in different rooms and let them pick this person out. They picked out the same person.
Shooter
Let me ask you this.
That was not a good thing for me to do. I shouldn’t have done that.
We do the best that we know how. At that moment in time.
I gave it to the police, and they left him out there to die. They left him out there because once I knew who he was.
Other people.
They already knew because the kid had already told everybody. Not only did he get the information to me, he already had given it.
Street justice.
Street justice had his way. My son died on July 29th. This person was dead by September 11th.
Was he the shooter?
Yes, he was. He was absolutely the shooter.
What did you think about hearing that he had been shot?
It was another grief because all I could think about was his mama who never thought about me. What do you do? What do we do as a community, even if we’re neighbors? I said this on a radio show that I did last year. What do you do, or what do we do when your child kills my child? What do you do as a community?
Struggle.
What do you do? What should you do? My ideal thought was that you’re going to come over with a casserole and tell me just how sorry you are that your son or your child made that decision. You’re going to do everything that you can to help me through it. That was my thought. That was my thought. It wasn’t my immediate thought.
Girl, no.
It was my thought. Who is this family? I didn’t get the opportunity to do a trial, see people on one side, and we on one side. I didn’t get the opportunity to be a victim. I’m a victim. My children are victims. My grandchildren are victims who knew him.
How old was Jihad when he passed?
He was 21. The number 21 is very significant.
A Beloved Son
What are some things about him that Mama knows that other people don’t know about?
He would come to your house and take one of your socks.
One sock? Who does this?
One. He would leave you with one, and he would wear them. People would put in socks. You know how people put flowers in the grave? People were putting socks in his.
Really?
Yes.
What are some other things about your son?
He loved children. He used to walk the kids, like little ducklings, to the Chinese restaurant. They would be right behind him. He would go around and tell people, “Give me money.” The super soaker.
He’d get mad at the mothers of those children on the weekends or on the first of the month. They’d go get their hair and nails done. They’re going to go out. He would supersoak their hair.
Are you talking about the water gun?
Yes. You are not going anywhere. You going to stay home with the kids. Those are stories that I heard about him. I had no idea that he was studying or was so interested in gangs and gang life and the psychology of it. He talked to me about it. Like, why are they following stupid people?
Did people think he was a gang member?
Absolutely.
What was he?
He was a crip.
He wasn’t?
Bottom line. Yes, he was. He absolutely was. I believe publicly, this might be the first time I said that. He was a Crip. He was involved in gang life because the entire community of his age range, the girls, the guys, everybody took a side.
He never knew anything different?
No. Not from his peer group. His peer group, that’s what they were doing. He had a problem with who they were following. He started studying the origin of the Crips, and he went to Los Angeles. I didn’t know that till he died when I had people show up at his funeral and speak to me.
Let’s go back to something. Thank you. One of the things you said was being able to say his name.
Yes.
How did it feel to hear the stories of yourself?
Nobody told me any bad stories about him. I needed to hear. Jihad, we did this thing at his funeral called Simply Redeemed. Not perfect, Simply Redeemed. He was a believer. That was the only comfort that I had when I saw him on that floor was I knew that he knew to call on the name of Jesus and that he anointed himself in the protection of the Lord, period.
Thank you for sharing that. What to the person that’s listening and thinking, “How was he saved and he gangbanged? How does that work?”
You can’t be a drunk and be gangbanging. You can’t be a whore and be gang and believe in God. The word says to pray about everything. Everything. I say that about parents. When it says, “Honor thy mother and thy father,” honor your crackhead mother and father. It’s still your father and your mother. You wouldn’t be here if God didn’t put those two people together.
If they would put them with somebody else, it would be somebody else. It wouldn’t be you. I wanted my children to know that whatever they did in this life, may all sin be sin. Whatever you’re doing, do it in a way that will be pleasing to God. If you’re involved in gangs, do it in a way that is pleasing to God. It is that gangs got together to protect. This is what he learned, to protect and to serve their community, their people, not to rob and kill and steal, not to have a fight over what color shirt you have on. That is what disturbed Jihad about these conversations.
Why is this side of Springfield? He grew up with all those. The ones on this side of the block and that side of the block, he was born on that side of the block. That was the Crips. He hung out on that side of the block. That was the Bloods. He had to have interactions with all of them. They teach each other to follow people who are not knowledgeable, that have no wisdom.
One of the things that he said was, “Yeah, I had a fight with one of the leaders because first of all, he can’t beat me. Second of all, he got a second-grade education. I don’t believe that everybody should be listening to what he said.” He felt that way. He wanted to make people think about this. He saw it as, “We’re going to have us a business and we’re going to raise these kids, and we’re going to be a family. We are a family.” That was just what might have been wishful thinking on his part, but it was his thinking of his young age when he left for school and he came back to the death of somebody who was younger than him.
He stayed. He was still there. He was supposed to go back to North Carolina. The actual day, that night he died, that day he was supposed to leave. He was staying until the next weekend for the third to memorialize a young man who had died and had been killed. He was a kid. I think he’s about fourteen years old, possibly 14 or 15, and got killed in the hallway. They were going to do a little celebration.
That was the year. It was going to be the year on August the 3rd, which was that following weekend. He was like, “I’m going to stay.” His ticket was purchased. He was supposed to be gone. All those things came to my mind. Over time, my calm thinking let me know that that was his destiny. That was his life. That was his death. Not my life, not my death. I have to keep telling myself that.
I was going to ask you, how was it outliving Jihad?
It was devastating. At certain times, it’s devastating. When I look at my sons and my grandsons and having to overcome anxiety, and anxiety we are not just for nothing, but I have to tell myself that over and over again, their choices have consequences.
Everyday.
Everybody does, but your choices have consequences. He made the choice to stay an extra week. That was a choice. You understand? He made the choice to live and die where he was born. People were dying around him. He knew the danger.
Every choice you make has consequences. Share on XWhat would you say to the people in that community now?
Some of them have made me very proud. The ones that said this came to me and in their devastation of Jihad’s dying, like, “Mommy, I’m going to make something of myself.” They have, some of them are stuck where they are, their beliefs are what they are, but I do know this: anybody that Jihad came across that did not know Jesus, that did not know God, he made sure that he was a reflection of God. My bishop made sure no matter where he looked, they turned; they had some members of my church turn their nose up to him when we first started coming to the church. “Boy, why you got them braids in your head?” All that kind of stuff. Those people, Bishop made the example of, “You look fine to me. You are going to greet the people. You’re the usher. You understand?
You can always be.
You can always be you. You don’t bring people who look like you into the church. Let me tell you a funny story about him. Easter Sunday might’ve been 2002. They stole a car to bring the kids to church. I will never forget it. They all had on, how do you get the kids dressed up for church? They all had on 76er jerseys, which are purple and something, even the children. They brought them to church in this car. I’m like, “How you all get here?” or whatever; around the corner from the church, they had a car that they stole to bring the kids to church.
I have no questions.
It was so hilarious when I found out. I didn’t find out that day, but just to find that, oh my, that wasn’t her car. They stole that car because they couldn’t find a ride. That was incredible to me. That was an effort. He wanted to be in church. He wanted the kids to be in church on Easter Sunday.
Hook or crook.
Hook or crook, and they made it to church.
What is life like for you now?
I still spend a lot of time by myself. It’s very difficult. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, I cannot get my family to come together. Just to one time before I leave here, I would like to have all my family in the same place. We’ve had some family reunions that we use; we started calling Thanksgiving family unity weekend because it was easy for people who were off on Thursday, probably on a Friday.
It was a long weekend. However, that was Jihad’s favorite holiday. I still have his turkey hands, and I still have in my mind, and I could hear him say that’s his favorite holiday. No presents, no nothing, no Santa Claus, no presents, just family and food. Macaroni and cheese, turkey. I can hear him say those things as so young. He was so young when he said that. I love Thanksgiving. I love it. Food, family, family, macaroni and cheese. Cheese was his favorite and his father’s favorite. I could hear him say those words. I can hear him. I argue with him. I struggled to have him. He was the last child at home with me.
I struggled to have him live in Montclair, New Jersey, 3 or 4 times higher than where I was from. To have him in that community, to get him out of the hood. I could not keep him out of that hood. I caught the bus at 6:00 in the morning and went banging and kicking down doors to get him. It was out of my control. The last few years of his life and being a teen and moving into a new community, he was just drawn back down to that community.
He didn’t. Yeah, he didn’t say, “These people are fake. I don’t want to be with them.” His friendships, football, he played football, martial arts, all those things were the things that brought him friends that he made up there, but he really didn’t care for any of the friends. That was his family down there, and he wanted to be there. It’s as simple as that.
Taking Action
When we thought about the idea of this conversation, what made you want to do that?
I’ve been wanting to express his story, my story, not his story, my story for a long time. In pieces, I have, but so that people could connect to my experience. All they could do was wonder what I’ve been through the last 21 years, where I’ve been. For some people, I disappeared out of their lives. My journeys have been rough. My walk has been rough. I believe it’s permissible to kill, but not to murder. There’s a difference, and people need to know what that difference is and live by the consequences.
Because if you murder, there’s no repentance for that. That’s what I believe. I believe that killing is permissible. I want people in the communities where all these murders are happening to stop having candlelight vigils and balloon releases and really do something about our kids murdering each other. I want the church to come outside the building and bring what you say out into the community. The people sitting in the church are saved already. I believe my experience is to stay inside the walls of the church and not to go into the community that is having these experiences and putting yourself in the same danger, not going out at night strolling. That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about actively going out and seeking out these parents of these murdered children and these parents of these murderers, because we are all victims of that. The person who shot my son had a mother. She’s a victim of the actions of her son. He made a decision, and then he died. Even if he didn’t die, I see families go to court to be there to support him but not to be there to agree. I don’t agree with my kid killing your kid. I don’t care what he called the reason. I don’t abandon whatever the reason.
I believe that we have to break a cycle, and in order to break it, you have to do something different. Everybody’s doing the same thing. It’s not effective. What we’ve done so far is not effective. Let’s find an effective way as a people, not as a Christian or a Muslim. Get out there as a church body, because there are some people in church who have children sitting in prison for life who committed crimes, and they’re praying all the time, and they’re going to visit them or whatever. We need to do something as a people to break that cycle. It’s a generational curse to stay ignorant in your doing. How many candlelight vigils can we have?
What is a candlelight vigil doing for the community to stop the next candlelight vigil? What is a balloon release in memory of someone doing to change their behavior, to change the comfort of this war zone that they’re living in? Every Friday and Saturday night, we’re burying our children like they’ve been to war. The funeral parlors are the only ones getting rich because they are lined up; they are booked with bodies of children, and babies, at the hands of other babies. It’s not a norm to go around killing each other. It’s just not. What are we doing about it? I feel like the things that I wanted to do were not supported in the way, like at first they said, “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea,” but then when it comes to putting boots on the ground, don’t nobody want to put boots on the ground.
What me and Michelle did that Friday night before Jihad was killed in a place where somebody had been shot the night, no, he was shot the next day, and so many people had been. If that was being done throughout our communities all the time, just going out there, talking to people, I’m not even religious, not even giving them religion, but giving them life. That’s why I said the church is the people, the body of Christ. The church is the people. Come outside the church and be effective. That is what I believe. God, no matter what God you serve, we’re supposed to serve humanity.
How do you do that on your own individual basis?
I talk to people as much as I can. I don’t waste my breath and talk about the weather to people. If I get to talking, I’m talking about starting with your family. I believe that’s why I’ve been wanting all of my family together.
What are things that you do for your community, wherever your community is?
In my community now, I spend a lot of time making sure people get food. People just need to eat. You got people that get a thousand dollars worth of food stamps, and their kids are hungry. You have older people or people who are struggling in retirement, and their money’s just not making it. They’re not eating. They’re not eating properly. Do you want to know why people are unhealthy? Because they’re eating the bare minimum. They have to decide whether to pay the light bill or buy groceries.
That is a passion that I have, a food bank for working people, that they don’t have to go and drop all their ID, social security card, all that, just to get food for their families. They don’t have food. I don’t care what car they’re driving. They’re paying a car note and insurance because they need to go to work. When they go to work, they’re working paycheck to paycheck, and they can’t buy groceries, period. That is a passion of mine. That was a passion of my son’s. He would feed people. That was a passion of my brother who died in ’87, just feeding people. People have to eat in order to be healthy. That’s something that brings people together. Food will bring people together.
Honoring Their Memories
You start relaxing and talking, and you start eating. I know we could go on and on with this. Are there some things that you wanted to talk about that we haven’t covered?
If you are guilty about your child dying, your children are your responsibility. A lot of grieving parents, especially males, feel responsible, feel like they didn’t protect them. They could have protected them. They could have changed it. There is absolutely nothing, nothing, we could do to change the course of anybody’s life. Everybody who takes their first breath in life is going to die. It’s going to die. We hurt because of it, but it’s a reality.
If we live each day with everybody that we interact with, what we say we love, as if it’s going to be their last, we’re kind and gentle and give people just some grace, the same grace we ask for when we mess up. Just give people grace. Give them space. Talk about, say the name. You could say your child’s name to anybody you want. Just say it. Haddi, Jihad.
I want to talk about him every time I get with anybody. I want to talk about him. I want to talk about him. He had 21 great years of life. I cannot say that that boy didn’t ride it till the wheels ran off, because he did. He did in 21 years. What did I tell you? People 70 years old haven’t done.
He enjoyed his life. He was defiant to me. He was defiant to what made him comfortable and what made him happy. I want to say to his siblings in my family, you just talk about him. It’s okay. It’s okay to talk about him. It’s okay for you to cry when you talk about him, but it always turns into laughter because he was that funny. Your socks, your clothes. His siblings, taking their clothes or whatever he did. Just talk about him. Release it. Breathe. I know you got a lump in your throat. I have one in my throat where I feel like I want to cry. Breathe. Forgiveness.
I believe we are supposed to forgive. The hardest thing that I had to do was forgive the people who killed my son, that planned it, that put it together. It was a very hard thing to do, but you know what? The forgiveness is not for them; it’s for me. Holding all that hate and anger and all that is just a cancer to your soul, to your bones. I just was sick, girl. I’m telling you, I was sick.
Until I stood in my bedroom and called those people by name and told them that I forgave them, I could not heal. I was just sick. I’m telling you, I was sick, and because it was in there, I’m just raging, angry. I was mad. Got to forgive. It’s for you. It’s not for the person who committed any act. It’s for you.
We don’t know. If you’re not there, you don’t know why people do what they do. You can guess it, but you don’t know why people do what they do. You can only know what you do and the forgiveness. Forgive the person who died. Forgive the person who left you, whether it’s your child, your husband, or your mama. Forgive them for leaving you. That was tough.
I was mad at them. Why would you do that? Why would you leave me? Why would you put yourself in a position to hurt me? Why would you put yourself in a position to give me all this pain? Why? I had to forgive Jihad for the role he played in dying. I had to forgive him. I felt like, followed the rules. The rules were given to you to keep you safe from all harm, but only God could keep you safe from hurt, harm, and danger. Nothing says that we won’t get harmed. Nothing says that we don’t know how we going to leave here. We just don’t.
We can choose how we live.
We can choose how we come on. Right there, we can choose, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m choosing to.
Episode Wrap-up
I’m going to let you close out this conversation.
I’d like to say thank you to the people who gave me grace, mercy, and understanding. I’d like to say the grief process lives on, but there are levels. I’m in the level where I’m happy to be grieving because, without it, I can’t feel. I wasn’t feeling anything. I’m happy to at least feel that. This is not my last conversation about this.
I want to answer in a big way, what do you do when your child kills my child? That’s how I want to end this. What do we do? What should we do?
What should we do when my child kills your child?
Yes.
Thank you, Widowhood.
Thank you, Widowhood, for having me.
