“I was only nine years old when my mother died. We were living over there by Shawnee Terrace and my mother was always down here, hanging out with her friends. She had friends all through here. One night, she was walking through the alley, over there off of 15th and Madison. She got in the car with a man, who didn’t like the fact that she was cool with someone that he didn’t like, and I guess she said something wrong to him and he started shooting at her. He shot her once in the chest and twice in the head. My granny didn’t even recognize her when she went to see her body. For real, jealousy is the reason why my mother is gone.

People really don’t understand that in God’s eyes, everyone is really brothers and sisters. People are really out here killing their own brother and sister. The whole world is just messed up to me. It needs to change. You can’t even walk outside without somebody shooting. 

There’s too many snakes in the grass. People have to watch out because everyone’s loyalty ain’t deep. A few months ago, my thirteen year old nephew got shot. The bullet is close to his heart. He felt like he could just run around people that he grew up with. They switched lanes and shot him. Sometimes, it’s the same people that you eat and share bread with that are fakest. My loyalty’s deep.

Right now, I just have to focus on things that make me happy. I don’t want to keep thinking about the past. I need to focus on something that’s going to keep me going forward instead of something holding me back in the past.

I struggle every day because there’s always something that’s keeping me from getting to where I need to be. It just makes me feel like I need a mother. I don’t need a person to tell me what to do. I don’t need a guardian. My daddy’s not in my life. I just want my mother.

My advice to world? Don’t disrespect your mother. People argue with their mother and the next day, not thinking that the next day, she could be gone. It hurts me to see people disrespect their mother. At the end of the day, you have to stick with your mother through it all, no matter what. Whatever drama she goes through, you have to go through it with her. That’s where your loyalty should run deep.” - Brianna, Russell