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This Place of Grief: Women who have lost loved ones to murder are comforted in Broken Hearts/Better Days
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Paula Hawkins (right) leads the group in a prayer at the end of a meeting of Broken Hearts/Better Days.
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Published: November 30, 2008
"Do it big!"
At unexpected times, Paula Hawkins hears those words so clearly, it's as if he is standing next to her, grinning beneath a New York Yankees cap that shades his thick, distinctive eyebrows.
But his voice is just a memory that surfaces then fades away.
Jonnathan, her only son, has been dead for two years, shot in the abdomen during a botched robbery that involved a drug transaction. He was 19.
After his death, Hawkins, 42, slipped into a downward spiral of despair that left her unable to sleep and concentrate. Slowly, she is pulling herself out of what she calls "this place of grief."
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, she found herself dwelling less and less on the tragedy of Jonnathan's short life.
"I'm trying to be thankful for the time he was here," Hawkins said.
She is sharing what she has learned about grief with other women who have lost loved ones to murder in Broken Hearts/Better Days, a new support group that she helped organize.
Through her work with the group and at vigils for people who have been murdered, Hawkins has emerged as a public face for grieving mothers. In Jonnathan's words, she is doing it big.
A source of strength for another mom
Hawkins is a source of strength for Lorraine Bays.
Bays' son, Sean Gallagher, was killed in July. John Gallaher is being held on charges of first-degree murder in Gallagher's death.
"She's so much farther through the process, and she'll tell me: ‘You can do it. You can make it.' And you need to hear that," Bays said. "You feel like a failure. Your children aren't supposed to die. You feel defeated and she helps me by showing by example. Look at how strong she is."
Hawkins, who is divorced, has three daughters, Ericka, 25, Malorie, 20, and Kayla, 19. She is also raising a friend's son, Daishon, who is 7.
Three of the four children, along with her mother, Sandra Hawkins, live with her in northern Forsyth County.
A Winston-Salem native, Hawkins works part time in administration at Greater Cleveland Avenue Christian Church. Her small office at the church is decorated with pictures of Jonnathan. In one, he is a boy, maybe 8, dressed in a basketball uniform. In another, he is a teenager about to go to the prom, dressed to the nines in a blue tuxedo.
Jonnathan, she said, was a happy boy.
"He was someone I was proud to be my son," Hawkins said.
Jonnathan was a hard worker, she said, and was a student at Forsyth Tech. He wanted to go into the Army Reserves and one day study nursing.
Within the family, Jonnathan played peacemaker. When feuds erupted, he would call for a family meeting. He routinely chided his mother for gossiping.
On the night of Sept. 20, 2006, Jonnathan swung by the church to pick up his mother then watched TV. At 10:30 p.m., the phone rang. It was Rahiem Brown, who lived close by. He wanted Jonnathan to sell him and a friend, Samuel Jarvis III, some marijuana, according to police testimony.
Brown and Jarvis later confessed to police that they had hatched a plan to lure Jonnathan to Brown's house then rob him of $240 worth of marijuana.
Jonnathan borrowed his sister's car and drove to Brown's house, about a block away.
The plan to rob Jonnathan went awry and a shot was fired from a 12-gauge shotgun. Each blamed the other for killing Jonnathan.
About 11 p.m., Hawkins and her daughter, Ericka, saw several police cars race pass their house.
Concerned, they took turns calling Jonnathan on his cell phone. He never answered.
"Something is wrong," Ericka told her mom.
Hawkins walked down to the scene, but the area was blocked off and there were too many police cars to see what was going on.
As the hours passed, the family grew more anxious. Finally, about 3 a.m., Hawkins walked back to the scene where she saw Ericka's car still parked in Brown's driveway. She found a detective, who began asking her questions about Jonnathan, then she walked back home.
Not long after, another detective came to the door to deliver the news.
Hawkins immediately called one of her best friends and told her: "They murdered Jonnathan."
A state of constant grief
Hawkins marked the monthly anniversaries of Jonnathan's death, visited his grave frequently and became immersed in Web sites devoted to mothers who have lost children to violence.
She sunk into a state of constant grief. Part of what troubled her was Jonnathan's connection to marijuana. She maintains that he didn't use drugs and was not a regular dealer, and it hurt her to hear that her son went to Brown's house to deliver marijuana.
In her head, she had countless conversations with Jonnathan.
"Why did you go down that street?" she asks him.
"Don't be mad at me," he answers.
"I'm just disappointed. I'm not mad."
Comfort was hard to find. One woman told her not to be bitter; another told her that something good would come out of it.
"You feel like you are going crazy," she said. "What can't I move forward? Why am I crying?" she would ask herself. "It's because my heart is broken. I can't heal, and I want it to heal."
About a month after Jonnathan's death, Hawkins received a package from Vigils for Healing, an interfaith ministry started by Tracey Maxwell and Bishop John and Deloris Huntley. The group formed in January 2006 with the goal of holding spiritual observances at every murder site in Forsyth County.
Through such observances, they hope to reclaim that space by spreading a message of nonviolence. They also want to the victims' families to know that the community recognizes their pain.
Each time a person in murdered in Forsyth County, the group sends a condolence package to the victim's family and includes information on the vigils. Some families aren't interested, but Hawkins was curious and called Maxwell several weeks after getting her package.
The two talked for about an hour. And about four months after Jonnathan was killed, Hawkins decided to attend a vigil for another murder victim. There, she lit a candle in memory of Jonnathan and told the victim's mother: "I, too, have lost a son to murder."
Several months later, Hawkins finally felt ready to hold a vigil for Jonnathan at her house. One afternoon, members of the Hawkins and Maxwell families canvassed the neighborhood, hanging posters of Jonnathan and inviting neighbors to the vigil.
"None of us knew each other," Maxwell recalled. "But for us and for her, it was a real coming together and a statement of solidarity that we can bridge all kinds of artificial divides that are thrust up on us by our society and something wonderful and beautiful can come out of it," Maxwell said. "And it did."
The vigil was so powerful that Hawkins and her daughter, Ericka, have attended vigils for other murder victims. They bring her a sense of peace.
Though she is finding more peace these days, she is still sorting through her own grief.
Brown and Jarvis' plea hearing in September was especially difficult. She sat alone in court that day absorbing every detail of her son's last minutes. Brown, 20, was sentenced to 18 to 23 years in prison; Jarvis, 22, got 16 to 20 years.
Shortly after the hearing, Vigils for Healing started Broken Hearts/Better Days for women who have lost loved ones to murder. The group meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Green Street United Methodist Church.
Hawkins' role in the group isn't confined to just helping other women.
"Paula is like the social glue," Maxwell said. "But when the door closes at 7, she is Paula Hawkins, mother of Jonnathan."
Being with the women comforts Hawkins.
"People who grieve like to be around people who care," she said.
On Thanksgiving, Hawkins drove to Evergreen Cemetery and shared a quiet moment with Jonnathan.
Then, she sat down to a big Thanksgiving meal and ate extra helpings of broccoli-and-cheese casserole and apple pie.
They were two of Jonnathan's favorites.
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal.com.
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