Gwyneth K. Shaw Photo
As she clutched a ribbon attached to a black balloon and gathered on the Green with other women who have lost sons to the gunfire on New Haven streets, Darlene Kelly found missing her son a little easier. And, yet, harder, too.
Kelly has encountered that bittersweet mix of emotions often since Calvin Talbert was gunned down on Orchard Street the day before his 23rd birthday last September. She joined a vigil against the violence Thursday evening on the Green with other women who continue to live with aftermath of murder long after the headlines fade — women who find support in each other, and hope their efforts will help spare other moms, grandmothers, wives and lovers the same searing experience.
“It helps, and it’s harder,” Kelly (pictured, with one of her daughters) said of events like Thursday’s vigil, organized by a group called Meeting of the Moms. “I go through my little moments. I pray, and I go to church, and I work to keep a positive mindset, because I have four other kids.”
Sharonda Washington (pictured), whose husband died in the Hill 13 months ago, said she welcomes distractions, but tends to “zone out” when she’s alone again.
“It feels like yesterday,” she said of Jeffrey Jones’ shooting. “Even if it’s 20 years from now, it’ll still feel like yesterday.”
Easter Sunday brought a sad flashback for Lynda Faye Wilson. As she performed her ushering duties at Thomas Chapel Church of Christ, she realized that she was doing the same thing exactly six months earlier, when the news came that her granddaughter had been shot to death.
Wilson (pictured at right) has visited Ja’mese Hudson’s grave many times. She couldn’t bring herself to go that day.
“I try to understand what’s going on” out on New Haven’s streets, she said. “But I can’t understand.”
All three came to the Green Thursday to remember, to comfort others and to make a statement.
They were more than a mother, wife and grandmother whose lives were riven by violence. They were part of a small but passionate vigil put on by Meeting of the Moms, an offshoot of the community organization Sisters With a New Attitude, or SWANA.
About three dozen people — mostly women, with a few men — braved a damp and chilly afternoon to speak out. They began at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James in the Wooster Square neighborhood, where organizers rehearsed the performances to come and marshaled the black balloons that signified a lost life.
Then they moved to the Green’s stage, which was dotted with puddles. Sandra Watts, a Pentecostal minister, led a long prayer, saying “God will bless the memory” of each person who’s been lost.
Veteran community activist Barbara Fair pledged to push everyone from beat cops to state lawmakers on stopping the flow of guns into New Haven’s neighborhoods. Clifton Graves, another activist who’s planning a run for mayor, worked a call-and-response riff with the crowd, imploring “mountains” of violence, drugs and other scourges to “move out of my way!”
After the speeches, there was what the vigil’s leaders called “SWANA drama,” brief spoken-word performances aimed at showcasing the tensions and traumas that are influencing the violence in some neighborhoods. Baub Bidon (pictured above) performed a piece called “Ghetto Jazz,” which traced the trajectory of playmates from hopscotch to flying bullets.
Finally, the group walked to the Amistad statute in front of City Hall, and after a moment of silence, let the balloons drift up into the sky.
Amid the activities, the memories flowed. Julia Santos (pictured) brought two pieces of poster board, carefully wrapped in plastic to ward off the day’s rain, covered in newspaper obituaries and memorial service programs. It was a way to ensure the dead — nearly all of them young men — won’t be forgotten, she said.
At the church earlier in the day, Elizabeth Lyde and Lillie Washington mused that they’d just been to a funeral on Tuesday, and were going to another Friday. Stopping the streak is what Thursday’s vigil was all about.
“It’s just too much,” said Deborah Elmore, director of the group.
The group, in concert with SWANA, offers support to grieving women, but is also pushing for more activities and jobs for kids and teens among a slew of other ideas. Members meet at the Wilson Library at 302 Washington Ave. on the second Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m.
Even with others to lean on, Wilson said, grieving for a lost child is a hard path to travel.
“Six months later, and I’m still speechless,” she said. “It’s more than just the guns, it’s in the heads and the hearts of these young people.”