0:00

When you think about abortion, there's

0:02

so much noise around it, but

0:06

there's a much quieter note

0:08

amidst all of that noise. Abortion

0:11

pills take two. Listen wherever

0:14

you find podcasts.

0:20

Listener supported WNYC

0:23

studios.

0:29

It's Notes From America. I'm Kai Wright. Last

0:32

week in Nashville, three adults and

0:34

three children, all nine years old, were

0:37

killed in yet another mass shooting. This

0:40

latest horror took me back to

0:42

a conversation that my WNYC

0:45

colleague Tracy Hunt brought us last

0:47

summer in the wake of yet another

0:49

mass shooting. Tracy

0:52

had been thinking about the sheer volume

0:54

of grief we've all experienced,

0:57

from the pandemic to police

0:59

killings of Black people to these

1:01

just countless mass shootings. She

1:04

wondered if we're grieving properly,

1:06

if at all, during this onslaught

1:09

of death.

1:09

So Tracy

1:11

turned to two mothers who know

1:13

a lot about grieving,

1:15

Nelba Marquez Green and

1:17

Celeste Fulcher. Nelba's

1:20

daughter, Anna Grace, was killed

1:22

by a mass shooter at Sandy Hook

1:24

Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. And

1:27

a year later, Celeste's daughter, Erica

1:30

Robinson, was killed in a shooting

1:32

at a nightclub in New Haven. They

1:35

talked to Tracy about

1:37

grieving publicly and privately. Here's

1:40

Tracy as she meets Nelba.

1:42

So I hopped on the computer with her and

1:45

it immediately felt intimate. Good

1:47

morning. She was in her home office.

1:49

I was in my bedroom. Her

1:52

dark curly hair was on top of her head

1:54

like in a bun. And she was wearing this pink

1:56

t-shirt with the word Latina in

1:59

cursive written across it.

1:59

and as

2:02

we said hello, we were both preparing

2:04

to talk about something really personal. Yeah, my

2:06

candle is lit. Yeah. Okay, why

2:08

don't you light a candle? Okay. Just get

2:10

yourself

2:11

calm. I have my lotion. Maybe

2:14

I'll get my lotion. And I started with

2:16

telling her what grief has been like for

2:18

me.

2:19

I've been wanting to talk

2:21

to you for a while because, you know,

2:24

I started following your Twitter account a few years

2:26

ago, and it was right around

2:28

the time that my uncle

2:31

died of cancer and my

2:33

family was having a really hard time.

2:36

And the way I was dealing with it

2:39

was that I was trying every

2:41

day not to think about him. Because

2:44

if I did, you know, I would cry,

2:47

and then I'd get upset with myself for crying. And

2:50

then I stumbled on your account, and you were,

2:52

it seemed to me, like you were tweeting

2:54

about your daughter, Anna Grace, every

2:56

day. It'll be a joke

2:59

Anna told you or a video

3:02

of her singing while her brother plays

3:04

the piano. Just these really

3:07

beautiful, intimate moments from her

3:09

life. And I

3:11

kept thinking, like,

3:13

how is she doing that? And I

3:15

was like, wait, wait, am I doing this

3:17

wrong? There's no norms in

3:19

grief, right? There are ebbs

3:21

and flows, but there are no norms. So perhaps

3:24

by not thinking about your uncle, it wasn't that

3:26

there was something wrong with you, but maybe

3:28

that was what your mind and body and spirit needed

3:30

to do to handle that loss

3:33

in the moment for you. Dissociation

3:35

gets a bad rap, but it's not necessarily

3:38

a bad thing. It can be

3:40

a tool for survival. So if

3:42

in

3:43

those moments of grief, you needed

3:45

to put the sacred,

3:48

precious memories of your uncle in

3:50

a place to save

3:53

for a time where you would feel safer

3:55

or more protected

3:57

or... more

4:00

supported, then I'm

4:02

grateful to you for listening to that because

4:04

the worst thing we do in grief is become

4:06

prescriptive and say, you know, I follow

4:09

this Puerto Rican woman on Twitter, and

4:11

she talks about her loved one every

4:13

day. So here's what we're all going to do. Talk about

4:16

our loved ones. That's not the right recipe for

4:18

everybody. What we need to do when

4:20

they're grieving is honor our process

4:22

and ensure safety and

4:24

holiness, which is something that gets defiled

4:27

all the time. It's just my

4:29

way. Sometimes

4:29

I talk about her. Sometimes I talk

4:32

about Costco. Sometimes

4:34

I talk about burning, but

4:37

I want the

4:39

privilege and the control of when

4:41

I share her memories to be mine.

4:45

Can you remember like maybe the first time you

4:47

did that and were you like scared

4:49

of putting something precious about her online?

4:52

Probably the first time was like a month after she died.

4:55

I set up a Facebook,

4:57

prawnicling my memories of her on a page

4:59

called Remembering Anna Marquez Green. And

5:01

it's me telling very intimate

5:04

stories about Anna because

5:06

I wanted people to remember Anna,

5:09

not Sandy Hook.

5:13

One of the things that happens to survivors of highly

5:16

publicized tragedy is

5:18

that you lose a sense of safety and you lose a sense

5:20

of control. It's not just losing your person.

5:22

There are pages dedicated to you on social

5:25

media with pictures of your loved one you have not

5:27

endorsed. There are people, both

5:29

organizations and individuals, fundraising

5:32

on your back of your loss. It is

5:34

incredibly gross. So I decided I

5:37

wanted to be the keeper

5:39

of her voice and memory. And I have to say this

5:42

every year, hey, in my daughter's name, nobody

5:44

gets to put her picture on a poster

5:46

or a graphic without

5:48

talking to her family.

5:54

In the days following the school shooting in

5:56

Uvalde, Texas, Nelba says

5:58

her inbox was flooded with request.

6:01

Gun control advocates wanted her

6:03

to release her daughter's autopsy photos.

6:06

Their reasoning was that seeing the true

6:08

devastation of what bullets do to bodies,

6:11

especially children's bodies, might

6:14

galvanize Americans' support for gun

6:16

control. This argument was

6:18

repeated all over social media and even

6:20

by some high-profile voices. Someone

6:24

actually said, well, you don't have

6:26

to then do the autopsy photo, well, just the crime

6:28

scene. And you know what I want to say? Well, you obviously

6:29

do not remember that my child

6:32

was the only black child because you

6:34

can't just randomly put a crime scene of dead

6:36

bodies out there. Anna would be the most

6:39

visible.

6:40

We want to save lives, but

6:42

we can't save lives compromising

6:44

the people who are already struggling to live

6:47

in the process.

6:50

Nelba won't be sharing any photos of Anna's

6:53

body. She believes the photos

6:55

she's already shared of her daughter, alive,

6:57

vibrant,

6:59

and absolutely adorable with big

7:01

dark eyes, brown skin, curly

7:04

hair, and dimples, should

7:06

be enough to change anyone's mind

7:08

about gun control.

7:10

So we have a box that holds

7:13

our daughter's clothes that she was wearing on the

7:16

last day that she was alive. And

7:20

someone processed the clothes, it cleaned it,

7:22

you know, laid it beautifully and put it in

7:25

a purple box with a bow. I

7:27

haven't opened it. My husband hasn't opened it. And

7:30

it's here. It's actually in my office

7:32

in the closet on top. But just to kind

7:34

of imagine myself taking that box

7:37

and walking through the halls of Congress, like,

7:40

I do not owe you sacrificing

7:43

myself for people who have shown

7:45

us over and over again that

7:47

they will not do the right thing.

7:49

You don't get to sacrifice me or ask

7:52

me to sacrifice myself on that altar.

7:54

Yeah. I'm sitting here

7:57

trying my best to survive.

8:00

You know,

8:02

grief makes people uncomfortable. Why do you think that

8:04

is that people are so like, can't

8:07

deal with grieving people? It's terrifying.

8:09

Who wants to be me? I walk in a room and I'm

8:14

a reminder of an American nightmare.

8:18

Nobody wants to be

8:21

reminded that you could do all the right

8:23

things. Go to church, tithe, pay

8:25

your taxes, own a

8:27

home, live in a suburb, and

8:29

lose a kid in a shooting. Nobody

8:32

wants to be reminded of that, specifically

8:34

to gun violence. That's part of it. And nobody

8:36

knows what to say because we're also people

8:39

who want to fix things. And when I walk

8:41

in a room, I have made it clear that you are not

8:43

going to fix this until the day I meet

8:45

Jesus and I see Anna again,

8:48

this hole doesn't get fixed.

8:51

We have taught people, if you pull yourself up

8:53

by your bootstraps, if you do enough work, if

8:55

you go to enough therapy, you won't be grieving

8:57

anymore. You will be recovered.

9:00

Well, let me be the first to say that that's the biggest old

9:02

bullshit, like, and it hurts people.

9:11

It's Notes from America. We'll be right back.

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What is a city

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without its music? The legacy of

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the New York Philharmonic is incredible. Nearly

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two centuries of history. That's

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a lot of music and a lot of stories.

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I was sitting on stage for the very first

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time thinking, I can't quite

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believe this is happening.

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Join me, Jamie Bernstein, as

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we explore the history of the New York Philharmonic.

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It's the NY Phil story made in

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New York, a podcast about a city,

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its people, and their orchestra. Listen

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wherever you get podcasts.

9:59

You're a therapist and even

10:02

before this happened you had patients

10:05

that were grieving and that you were helping

10:07

through that process. And

10:10

I was wondering when you were on your own

10:12

journey, was there anything about your process

10:15

that surprised you? How little I knew.

10:17

How little I knew about

10:20

the darkness, about the ever-present weight.

10:23

I am a much better supporter

10:25

and clinician to parents,

10:27

families that I work with

10:29

who have experienced loss than

10:32

I ever was before.

10:34

I consider that a sacred

10:36

privilege. I feel like we

10:38

have sat down and actually experienced

10:41

or thought about the million

10:43

plus people who have died in this country. And

10:46

I'm wondering how do we do that as a nation?

10:49

Is that something that's even possible? How

10:51

does a country who never

10:53

acknowledged

10:54

and has never really formally acknowledged

10:57

the grief of enslaving people?

11:01

The grief of how

11:03

we let down folks in the HIV

11:05

AIDS community, of the grief

11:09

of Columbine, of Oklahoma City. How

11:11

do we expect them to grieve now? COVID

11:13

or George Floyd. We are a grief

11:16

averse culture who refuses to

11:18

feel anything. We want to think

11:20

our way through, right? And when

11:22

we think our way through, then we can

11:24

think that we're going to be better if we

11:26

just put those unpleasant, uncomfortable

11:29

feelings that cause us to self-reflect away. But

11:31

that's kind of what I do with my Twitter

11:33

feed. If you're reading what I'm

11:35

writing and you're thinking and not feeling,

11:38

something is wrong.

11:43

Now, but also uses through social media

11:45

to talk about other victims of gun violence

11:48

and the families they've left behind. I've

11:51

actually tweeted about Trayvon Martin

11:53

before, like police support his

11:56

mom at Sabrina Fulton. And

11:58

there is very rarely.

11:59

times where I get uglier comments

12:03

than when I post about

12:05

victims the world has not sanctioned

12:08

as angelic. I feel like

12:10

there are victims of gun violence we care about

12:13

because of age or circumstance

12:15

or in these school shootings as one of those. And

12:17

then there are mothers, mostly black

12:19

mothers, let's be 100%

12:21

real. We forced

12:23

to carry a dossier of

12:25

their child's activities and

12:28

goodness in order to give a shit about

12:30

them. And that makes me so

12:32

angry. If you sent a teddy bear here, tell

12:35

me why you are not

12:37

sending teddy bears when this happens

12:40

in Chicago or in Hartford.

12:43

Or that's a real question we have to

12:45

reconcile and grapple with if

12:47

we want to move the needle on gun violence

12:49

because we are basically assigning

12:52

empathy. And I've said before that empathy drives

12:54

resources. Empathy also drives

12:57

solutions. We

12:59

have to be honest about who we are,

13:01

why we want solutions and who we want solutions

13:03

for. And I want you to want solutions

13:06

for the families of Oubale, for the families

13:08

of Buffalo, for Sabrina Fulton

13:11

and for Celeste.

13:17

Can you tell me a little bit about Celeste? Um,

13:22

so I think it was January of 2013 and

13:25

I read this article about a dad and a mom who have lost a child

13:27

and they're saying, I know my child

13:29

was the wrong color and in the wrong city to be grieved,

13:33

but we too deserve your empathy and compassion. Celeste

13:39

Vulture's 26

13:41

year old daughter was shot and killed in a nightclub. Five others

13:43

were five

13:45

others were injured. This was about

13:48

a year after Nelba lost her daughter.

13:50

And after reading about Celeste

13:52

and her husband, she called a reporter covering

13:54

the story and asked to be connected. Nelba

13:57

says she was moved to reach out to the family because of her death.

13:59

because she believes that if Anna had been shot

14:02

and killed under different circumstances, like

14:04

in a poorer, more marginalized community,

14:07

her death would not have gotten any notice by the

14:09

media.

14:10

We drove to their house, my husband

14:13

and I, and we met them privately, and

14:16

we have stayed in relationship now

14:19

for almost 10 years. Yeah. She's

14:22

an incredibly brilliant woman

14:25

who loved her daughter as much as I love mine.

14:28

I can honestly say to this day, my

14:31

family is not the same.

14:33

Still isn't the same. I

14:36

still to this day say I'm doing a life sentence.

14:39

By the grace of God, they found the guy

14:41

that killed my daughter.

14:43

He got life, but I'm

14:46

doing life. How did

14:48

you feel about the way your daughter's death was

14:50

initially reported on the news? It

14:53

was hard because it was

14:55

an after hour nightclub,

14:58

so it was like a

15:00

lot of eyebrows went up because

15:03

what was she doing there? What

15:05

was she doing in a nightclub? And I'm

15:07

like, she's 26 and pay taxes,

15:10

and it's a licensed facility that

15:12

the state allowed the

15:14

owner to open.

15:16

You know what I mean? Why not? Why not go

15:18

where she want? So let's notice something

15:20

else. Despite the fact that six

15:23

people were shot that night, it wasn't

15:25

talked about in the press as a mass shooting.

15:28

What did your brain make of that

15:30

difference? Like it's literally in your face.

15:33

These inner city incidences,

15:35

they're not considered mass. And

15:38

is it now, okay, is it the color of your skin?

15:41

Is it just a coat? What is going

15:43

on for you to say this

15:45

is a mass shooting? It's

15:47

like,

15:49

how much more can I take?

15:53

And you know, eventually I had

15:55

by the grace of God, I had to

15:58

think of her. and

16:01

what she would want from

16:03

me.

16:08

Can you tell me about Erica? Like,

16:11

what was she doing back in 2012, 2013? She

16:15

was that

16:17

light. If I had a bad day

16:19

at work, she'd come in, if I'm sitting on the couch,

16:21

she would come in and be like, oh no,

16:23

we ain't doing that today. Let's go, get up,

16:26

let's go. We're not doing that. Even

16:28

just within her friend circle,

16:31

she was that go-to person. If

16:33

anybody was beefing,

16:36

anybody had anything between them, she

16:38

was that person to straighten

16:41

it out, get everybody together, bring

16:43

people together. You know what I mean?

16:45

So she was always that

16:47

uplifting person. Yeah. You

16:51

know, I always laugh, cause she used

16:53

to always say, mom, VIP wherever

16:55

I go. When it was time for her funeral,

16:59

me and my husband looked at each other

17:01

like, oh my gosh, she really was.

17:03

Because it was like literally over 2000 people. Wow.

17:08

She was very well known.

17:13

Grief isn't something we overcome.

17:16

It's something we incorporate into our lives.

17:20

For me, it's been four years since

17:22

I lost my uncle to pancreatic cancer. After

17:26

years of trying not to think about him, I'm

17:28

now in a place where when he pops into my

17:30

mind, I'm thankful for that memory.

17:34

Because as Nelba said, grief isn't

17:36

something we should avoid.

17:39

Grief often drives resources

17:41

and solutions, but that

17:44

hasn't happened with gun violence.

17:46

Many Americans still dismiss shootings

17:48

like Sandy Hook as one in a million tragedies

17:51

or something that doesn't happen in their

17:53

neighborhoods. But

17:55

the families who've lost loved ones to gun violence

17:58

live with that grief every day.

17:59

By not grieving with

18:02

them, we're allowing ourselves to walk

18:04

into tragedies that could be prevented.

18:07

Because if we actually grieved, we

18:09

might actually do something.

18:16

Celeste is now part of a network of mothers,

18:19

grandmothers, aunties, most

18:21

of them Black, who've come together in

18:23

recent years to support each other.

18:27

I guess this is the path that God put

18:29

me on, that I never, I never

18:32

ever would have thought. But

18:35

that's my story. That's my life. You know what I mean?

18:38

To be able to go

18:41

to them without

18:43

words and just

18:45

hold somebody. Because I'm a hugger.

18:48

When I tell you that makes a world to me, just

18:52

to be able to get to another

18:54

mom and just hold them. Don't

18:57

even know them. Because I just wanted

19:00

somebody to

19:00

know, I got you.

19:12

That was WNYC's Tracy

19:14

Hunt, in conversation with Celeste

19:17

Fulcher and Nelba Marquez-Green.

19:22

Notes from America is a production of WNYC

19:25

Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts

19:27

or on Instagram at Notes with Kai. Mixing

19:31

and theme music by Jared Paul, reporting,

19:33

producing, and editing by Karen Froman, Vanessa

19:35

Handy, Regina DeHear, Rahima

19:38

Nassa, Khushit Navadar, and Lindsay Foster-Thomas. Andre

19:41

Robert Lee is our executive producer, and

19:43

I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for spending time with us.

19:50

Thanks for watching.