IN this month in which we honour mothers, we should all get to know a lady who lost her innocent son to the current crime epidemic.
We should feel her intolerable pain as we hear her torment about the killing of a beloved son in the crosshairs of a nation at war with itself.
Not a woman who delighted in the glittering spoils of crime, and then blurted with fake disbelief when her son was gunned down.
But a mom whose teen had a typical life of school and struggle, family and friends, purpose and promise.
A young man who fell to a trigger-happy fellow youth, by being in a public area during a brutal round of gunplay.
That’s the mom I met – and it was a chilling experience.
The cold-blooded murder happened several weeks ago, but the hurt is so raw that the mother refers to her son in the present tense.
It’s as if she expects him to still walk through the front door with a broad smile and a warm hug.
The crack in her voice and free-flowing tears along her cheeks are matched with questions for which they are no obvious answers.
Like so many of us, she can’t reconcile Trinidad and Tobago becoming so bloody.
She recalls not long ago the politicians talking about developed-nation status, although that also does not make sense because there was no change in the quality of her life.
She reflects on the simplicity and security of earlier village life.
She wonders why the investigating police officers cannot make any arrests even though the thugs are almost surely from a gang in a drug block within a few miles.
She shakes her head in distress talking about the low crime detection rate.
Mom speaks sadly about the son she misses so sorely, and family members talk with concern about her loss of appetite and lack of zeal to move on.
The tears temporarily stop and she jolts with anxiety in commenting on the public utterances of some public figures.
She wants to know if they feel the hurt of a family rocked by the horrible murder of a loved one.
She takes a sip of water and ponders on whether murder victims are mere statistics to those in authority.
She straightens her posture and questions why everything – everything! – has to be about politics.
In all the agony, there is no support from the authorities.
No official agency has visited and no authority figure has offered support.
Mothers – families, generally – of murder victims surely deserve grief counselling, and overall survivors’ support.
On that note, I came across Mothers of the Murdered and Missing (MOMM), described as a non-governmental organisation, offering “free therapeutic services to mothers and parental figures.”
The listed number is 468-1666.
This and similar groups deserve to be commended for providing support for parents enduring the unbearable anguish of a murdered loved one in the T&T killing fields.
We should all reach out to mothers who are suffering a family loss to the horrendous curse of violence.
It may serve to remind us of the flesh-and-blood reality of appalling crime in Trinidad and Tobago.
