By Daria
Sokolova
A grief support group, Mothers of Murdered Sons was founded by Phyllis Duncan, whose son Dodavah Duncan was fatally shot in May 2006 in northwest suburban Elgin.
Also
known as MOMS, the group seeks to provide grief counseling to those whose
children were senselessly taken away by gun violence. The group holds their
meetings on sthe econd Saturday of each month at the Bellwood public library,
located at 600 Bohland Avenue.
"We started here in western suburbs six
years ago, addressing the crimes and the homicides here in a Proviso Township,"
says Duncan, founder of MOMS and women's community leadership counsel.
"When I started MOMS, we were having almost five or six murders sometimes a year, sometimes in
a month. It occurred here in Maywood and Bellwood."
Years later, the problem of crime
still plagues the Bellwood area, which Duncan says local authorities do little
to solve the nagging issue.
"The mayors in our village feel
like they don't like to publicize how many murders we have in our
community," says Duncan.
Duncan says MOMS tries to keep the
community alert in hopes of preventing
new deadly violence.
"We want to continue to educate
our community in ways of prevention," says Duncan as a group of mothers sat
recently around the table in Bellwood library’s meeting room. "We are very
diligent about trying to address this so young men would be safe, and that they
would be protected and that they would be loved and taken care of."
Duncan says that contributing to the
problem of violence is the fact that many young people in her community don't
have access to jobs, education, or places where they can spend their free time
productively and therefore, have little opportunity for advancement in their
lives.
"When you are in a community
that is economically deprived from some of the other things that other
communities take for granted, you tend to have a problem. There are no jobs in
our community for young people, there are no centers or community organizations
with their doors open for young people," says Duncan.
Once bereaved, a mother never stays
the same, says the mothers in MOMS. A death of a child changes her life forever.
According to Duncan, the process of grieving has the stages every mother of a
murdered child goes through.
"I believe when we first lost
our kids, we went through a transition," says Duncan. "First, we have
to come to acknowledge and the last stage of grieving is acceptance. As you go
through the steps of grieving, you go through the denial, you go through the
feeling like you can't live again, that you can't breathe, that this is not
real. You actually go through the point saying this is a nightmare. You want to
wake up next day and see your baby."
Bobbie Hamilton, of Bellwood, whose
son Timothy Hamilton was fatally shot in his house in April 2010, says
acceptance is the hardest stage of the grieving process.
"A parent is not supposed to
bury a child," says Hamilton. "Your mind does not want to accept it,
it does not want to comprehend it because that's not how it's supposed to be.
That's the hardest part of it to accept. Your mind is not prepared for
that."
"I could not even feel my
stomach," says Hamilton, choking back her tears. "What I lived on for
two months was 7Up, cranberry juice."
MOMS welcomes every new member who
needs support and comfort. And their ranks are constantly being filled by
mothers whose children fell victim to gun violence on the streets of Chicago.
Veteran members share their
experience and talk about how to cope with the ordeal. Denice Parks-Hayes, the
author of the book "Grieving After the Death of Child: Personal
Perspective,", lost her only son on a day after Thanksgiving in 2005, and she
among is one of them.
Tarrence Darnell Parks, 28, was shot in a West
Side area called "The Square," located between 18th and 19th Streets
and Keeler and Karlov Avenues. Years of anguish and fruitless anticipation went
by and Parks-Hayes' son case went cold leaving her with questions that remain unanswered
to this day, the mother said.
"He was good boy, drew really
well," says Hayes, recalling memories of her son as a half-smile
lights up her youthful face. "Very outgoing, very loving young man.
Christmas and Fourth of July were his favorite holidays."
From his high school profile picture, Tarrence
flashes a cute boyish smile, in another photo, he sits on the porch of his
mother's house. Another shows him at the
hospital holding his newborn son. A neat dresser and a loving person, Parks stares
out from all the pictures his mother has lovingly put in a white plastic
folder.
Parks-Hayes gets emotional as she
talks about Thanksgiving 2005—the last memory of her son she cherishes more
than anything else.
"It was really a weird thing that he was
late this particular holiday and yet, he was able to see everybody still. It
was like God's will for him to see these people,” she recalls. “My husband
said it was really strange that as he was leaving he held his hand and shook it
twice.”
"We never really found out what happened.
No one is accountable like so many," says Parks-Hayes.
Hopeless and alone in her grief, Parks-Hayes started jotting down her
thoughts on one of the sleepless nights after her son’s death.
"I did not initially intend on
writing a book, it was just really hard time for me," says Parks-Hayes.
"So much inside, so many unanswered questions. And I could not sleep,
every body would be sleep, I would be up walking, flipping the channels, brain
would not shut off. So this one particular night I just started typing
thoughts, and I ended up accumulating a lot."
With the help of Mary Morris, author
of "Young Lions"
whom she once met at MOMS meeting, Parks-Hayes said
she published her own book, "Grieving After the Death of Child: Personal
Perspective" in summer 2011.
Survived by his friend Lanard Guider
and his family, Tarrence will stay in people's minds the way he was: outgoing,
smart, with a talent as a hairdresser, a talent that might have taken him far in life.
Left with no closure, Parks-Hayes found the
strength to move on and is determined to not let the devastation of losing a
child to murder ruin her life, even if the death of her son has left a
permanent scar on her heart.
"The thing about it is that
reality would slap you in your face and take you: 'Look, that boy is not coming
back,'" says Duncan. "You have to accept that he was gone and you
have got to move on. And that's what we are doing."