Opinion: A side of Mother’s Day no one talks about, but should

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Mother’s Day is framed as a day of celebration, often with flower bouquets, hand-signed cards and family meals. But for some of us, this day is also a day of solemn remembrance, heartache and even a call for action.

Some of us have lost our mothers due to illness, age, accident, neglect or violence. Some of us are mothers who’ve had to bury our children who died by their own hands or the hands of others. Some families have strained relationships or severed ties between mother and child, and others are haunted by unanswered questions about our sisters, our daughters, our mothers who vanished without a trace or whose deaths have gone unexplained, uninvestigated or unnoticed by systems meant to protect us.

I am one of those people. Six years ago this summer, my oldest son died by suicide at the age of 18. He didn’t leave a note. And 14 years ago, my youngest sister went missing at age 20. She was last seen by witnesses on Memorial Day weekend during a fight with her boyfriend. She left behind a toddler son, who’s now being raised by another one of our sisters. And on May 1 this year, one of my mother’s sisters passed away at age 80 — the first of my six aunts from either side of my family to die. Despite her age, with better health care she might still be alive today.

While I will always cherish my memories of these loved ones and be grateful that both of my parents and my youngest child are still alive, nothing can truly compensate me for the loss of my firstborn son, whom I think about constantly.

I am far from alone in such losses. Chances are you or someone you know is quietly mourning someone this Mother’s Day weekend. Grief, especially when it comes to the loss of a mother or a child, is not a private club.

But for Black families in Minnesota and across the country, that grief is too often compounded by other factors. It could be due to a legal system that puts our lives or our children’s lives in jeopardy because of implicit bias or historical perceptions. It could be the loss of our children by the hands or knees of overzealous law enforcement. After all, Black Minnesotans account for 26% of the deaths in the state by police force, a rate that is 5.4 times higher than for white Minnesotans.

Compounded grief among Black families could be due to other systemic issues, such as in health care, where Black Minnesotans represent 13% of the birthing population but make up 23% of pregnancy-associated deaths, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. It could be due to how Blacks comprise just 7% of Minnesota’s population but Black women account for 40% of domestic violence victims, according to a report by the state’s Missing and Murdered African American Women task force. Nationally, this data is just as alarming.

As a journalist, I’ve written on many of these tragic circumstances and know that advocates and families feel that the news media need to do more to address the disparities that exist for the Black community. For example, white women and girls who have gone missing, like Gabby Petito, Laci Peterson and JonBenet Ramsey, have received far more national media coverage than Black women like my sister Athena Joy Curry, or Tamika Huston, who was popularized by a podcast, or Minnesota’s own Brittany Clardy. Brittany was just 18 when she went missing in 2013 and subsequently found murdered. Her death was a guiding impetus for our state establishing the Office for Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls — a first in the nation. While all three of these Black women have received national media coverage — some of which I personally have reported – the overall coverage for the Black missing and murdered, as well as for Indigenous women and Latinas, pales in comparison to the coverage white women receive, even though women of color go missing at rates far greater than their percentage of the population, according to national reports.

When I interviewed Marquita Clardy, Brittany Clardy’s mom, for an article in USA Today’s Black History Month edition that featured the advocacy work her daughter Lakeisha Lee is doing in memory of Brittany, I asked her how she stays strong for such interviews. She told me: “I wouldn’t say it gets easier. The pain doesn’t go away. You start anew. You press the reset button and you start moving forward a little bit from there. I don’t think you have a choice. Emotionally and physically you have to find a way to push forward. And part of that is why I do what I do and Lakeisha does what she does in memory of Brittany. Mainly to keep her name alive and with her name it will help others.”

My sister Aisha Magee, who adopted Athena’s son, has been interviewed dozens of times by journalists. She told me, “It takes me the rest of the week to recover.” She knows Athena’s story needs to be told in the hopes someone who knows something comes forward. “One day there will be a trial and there will be justice,” Aisha said. She also noted, “I am only a mom because of what happened. I’d rather be the fun, cool auntie and have my sister here.”

The first time I reported on the murder of someone’s child, it was a Black child. I was in graduate school doing an internship at the Chicago Daily Defender. I was assigned to interview family members at the funeral. Another time, another Black child, I was writing for People magazine, which sent me to knock on the family’s and neighbors’ doors. I hesitated both times. It felt intrusive and opportunistic. But what I learned was that the families wanted these stories told. While I don’t tend to maintain contact with these families beyond my assignment, their words remain with me.

In 2022, a year after Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was fatally shot in Brooklyn Center by police officer Kimberly Potter, I interviewed his mom, Katie Wright. This was also after my own son, Jared Levy, had died. Her words still resonate with me. She said:

“When you lose a loved one, they say it is easy to move on, and it is not. It is a constant battle. There will never be another one of my son.”

Since the loss of a loved one may never completely fade, let’s all hold space this Mother’s Day weekend for those who are grieving, as well as for those who continue to call on the media and other institutions to address the disparities families face due to their lived experiences. A resolution to the injustices would be something to celebrate.

Sheree R. Curry is the co-president of the National Association of Black Journalists Minnesota (NABJ-MN), formerly known as the Twin Cities Black Journalists. She also covers news about corporate America for national media outlets. Follow her @shereecurry on LinkedIn.