Unfair Burdens on a 10-Year-Old Girl Post-Mother’s Funeral
Beyond Grief. Black Women have a long and hard legacy of caring for others
My 10-year-old cousin is a strong Black girl. On August 5th, she witnessed the brutal murder of her mother. She was the one who called 911. Her mother’s body, riddled with bullets, lay tilted out the window, blood pouring from her mouth.
She kept asking the homicide detectives, who shooed her and her younger siblings away — they’re like stair-steppers with their ages so close — “Is my mommy okay?”
They took the little witnesses (my beloved cousins) to a different section of the hospital while their mother gave birth to her younger sister. Nia had already passed away before the birth of her child.
The First 48 Hours
If you’ve seen that TV show “The First 48 Hours,” you know those first hours after a crime are crucial.
So, do I think the detectives did the right thing? They did their jobs, perhaps, but there’s a more humane way to do it.
Between my breaks from nomadic van travels, I sometimes stay with Anna’s grandma, Nia’s mom.
For clarity, Nia’s mom is Donna. Donna is Anna’s grandma, and she is my cousin
Nia often stopped by and dropped the kids off. Right away, I noticed Anna was different. While her siblings flipped and played, Anna sat with me.
When I wasn’t around, she probably hung out with her grandma, but since I was rare, it was me.
When I read, Anna read too. She talked about school life so vividly and with such maturity that I’d do a double take, like “who’s this kid?”
I’m into nature and artsy stuff, so when I colored and crafted indoors, Anna was there, preferring to do what I was doing instead of playing with the kids.
She was mature beyond her years, so much so that the adults didn’t usually shoo her away when having “grown folks conversations.”
One of the last times I saw Anna, she was at her grandma’s with her mom and her younger siblings’ dad. I recall the baby daddy’s neat loc’d hair.
He said Anna did his hair. “Anna can do hair like that?” I asked. I knew Nia could do hair because she did mine, but Anna apparently was following right in her footsteps.
I remember talking about hot pickles with Nia’s crew. I know locs and pickles are cultural stuff. Not saying it’s exclusively a Black thing, but yeah, it kinda is.
Yeah, it’s a black thang, you welcome though!
Nia’s mom didn’t want an open casket with her grandkids sitting up front during the funeral. She decided on a closed casket for Nia, who was shot over 10 times and was swollen and bullet-ridden.
The family was told they could see Nia and say goodbye on the day before her services. E.J., Anna’s 16-year-old sibling, had a tough time with his mom being gone.
He didn’t want to see her deceased. The other siblings weren’t really at a maturity level to decide if they wanted to go, so Donna kept them home with a relative.
When Anna went to see her mom at the funeral home in the casket, while everyone else was losing it, falling over, and even throwing up, she held everyone else up.
At the funeral, E.J. broke down crying, saying he needed his mom. He crumbled into a fort of cousins surrounding him.
Nia’s younger kids’ father went up to speak. He called his younger children up as he sobbed and screamed that he wanted to harm the people who harmed Nia and that he also wanted to harm himself.
He called Anna up. He told the story of having met Nia when she was pregnant with Anna.
He said he loved Anna like his own. He said if it wasn’t for Anna, someone would be harmed.
I did feel sorry watching him break down, but I knew that what he would really miss with Nia being gone was how much she did for him. Nia was his nurturer. She cooked and cleaned for him. She worked hard to pay their bills.
At the funeral, speaker after speaker praised Anna’s maturity and strength.
Nia’s Baby Sibling, the one born on the day her mother died, finally came home after spending weeks in the hospital.
Baby girl spent weeks fighting for her life and struggling to breathe on her own. Donna sent me a picture that someone took of Anna feeding the baby.
I had to do a double take, she looked so much like Nia. There, Anna sat with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, smiling as if she’d birthed the baby, and even if not, she would be the caretaker of her baby sister.
People think they are being helpful when they shower her with praises for her strength after witnessing the brutal murder of her mom. They think they are helping by telling her how strong she is.
Black Women Have Always Cared
What is meant to be helpful is hurtful. Black girls and women are always told how strong they are. We know our roles in our families, in the community, and at work, and we fall into them like a fitted glove.
Every black woman I know is a nurturer and a caregiver. Whether a professional or an average worker, in our families, communities, and the world, we serve the plates while everyone else sits down and eats.
Have a seat, enjoy your food.
Nah, bring me a plate while I enjoy my food.
According to Aisha Adkins, in her article “A Legacy of Care: Black Women’s Enduring Commitment in the United States,” she highlights, “Black women have a long and hard legacy of caring for others in the United States, from forced care by way of the enslavement of African people to the poverty wages earned by paid care workers today.”
This historical legacy doesn’t just encompass external expectations - it also stretches to our own families, where we’re often anticipated to undertake this role.
I will continue writing about Nia’s murder as it has disrupted my family’s life. I’ve always been drawn to true crime stories and have another tale I plan to share on a Medium and YouTube in 2024.
I find true crime stories captivating and perplexing, always seeking answers to the question: WHY?
As I move forward on my healing journey and strive to comprehend, I also aim to find solutions to the issues of guns and violence within our communities, as well as the legislators who loosen gun regulations.
I appreciate you reading this article in its entirety, as I weave together the harsh experiences of life and propose remedies for the gun violence plaguing our neighborhoods.
As another Medium blog post was aptly titled, “It’s Good to Be a Gun in America.” Yeah, it is!
RIP Dear Sweet, Nia. Sunrise April 15, 1989 — Sunset August 5, 2023
#Nora
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