Editor’s Note: This is a follow up to Erin Harris’ column about the murder of her mother, “‘There is never just one victim of a murder,’” which was published last week.

I now live in Asheville, North Carolina, but Memphis will forever be my hometown. I attended college, got married, raised two sons and got divorced in Memphis. I taught school and started a nonprofit that offers children the opportunity to strengthen their futures through art and gardening.

Guest Column: ‘There is never just one victim of a murder’

During my time at the Carpenter Art Garden, I became close with many of the youth, seeing them mostly every day for the eight years I worked there. Two young boys I knew well fell victim to homicide, one in 2017 and one this past March. Both boys were killed by guns, their deaths leaving their mothers to experience the unthinkable and scarring my soul.

Each murder victim leaves behind seven to 10 family members, not to mention friends and other loved ones, all of whom become co-victims. If we were to multiply the number of victims with the count of people impacted by their death, the co-victim total would reach into the hundreds of thousands here in the U.S. We might be wise to consider this a public-health crisis.

There is little research on the long-term effects of murder on co-victims. There is not enough ongoing support to address the PTSD, complicated grief, substance abuse, suicide, depression, strained relationships, feelings of isolation and stigmatization or the economic stressors. Racial inequities pose another obstacle to the medical and mental health care needed by these vulnerable citizens.

Louise Casey, the former Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses in the U.K. stated: “It is often said that the hallmark of a civilized society is how it treats its most vulnerable. This is frequently used in regard to those we incarcerate. I would like to suggest that this could also be applied to those who have a loved one taken from them by a criminal act through no fault of their own. And if we judge our society on the basis of their treatment, I wonder if we are as civilized as we think.”

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Our society remains disconnected from the real-life outcomes of our violent culture. We prefer avoidance over discussion of issues that are too painful, too uncomfortable. Our preference to turn our heads causes tremendous suffering. In her book “Trauma and Recovery,” Judith Herman writes: “The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud; this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.”

She goes on to say, “Advances in the field (of psychological trauma) occur only when they are supported by a political movement powerful enough to legitimate an alliance between investigators and patients and to counteract the ordinary social processes of silencing and denial.”

A common denominator we have as humans are our mothers. Each one of us was carried inside a woman’s body, birthed into this world at great bodily risk to herself. The women who labor, not by giving birth to a biological child, but mother through countless acts of care work with family members, friends, pets, communities and jobs are of equal importance. The daily act of mothering is found in a million moments that deserve more than we can ever be capable of acknowledging. On top of all this, why should our mothers be asked to carry the burden of a broken system of support when they need it most? And when their loved ones are taken from by all manner of violence.

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It is as if society has assumed that mothers have made an unspoken agreement to shoulder anything that comes their way, to labor silently against every atrocity.

The Labor Day holiday weekend for many is more about marking the end of summer, the beginning of a new school year and the start of football season than it is about celebrating and remembering those that toiled in unsafe working conditions for wages that barely afforded them a basic living.

I propose we do something different next year.

“It is often said that the hallmark of a civilized society is how it treats its most vulnerable.”

Louise Casey
Former Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses in the U.K.

What if next Labor Day we begin to rethink how we value our maternal laborers?

I did not picnic at a park or attend a parade on Monday, Sept. 4. Instead, I spent the day swept up in gratitude for the efforts of mothers everywhere. I prayed for a political movement powered by people who demand attention be given to the needs of some of our most deserving citizens. It’s a movement I want to be a part of creating. It will be a true labor of love.

Her name was Mary. She was my mother. She was murdered.