When Mary's oldest son was murdered for the rims on his car, the sadness she felt was enough to pull her completely under. Only by refusing to give in to depression for the sake of her other three children did she make it through.
Mary's Story
"You look back and you almost see it coming."
My son Joseph was 18, and he had this beautiful '71 Lincoln Mark-3. He spent all his money restoring this car, and he finally got down to the last thing that he wanted -- rims. I remember when he said wanted the rims for Christmas, I said, "Son, why do you want rims? People get killed for their rims." We gave him some money to go toward rims, and he paid the rest.
"On his way home from a date with his girlfriend, he was carjacked and shot -- for his rims."
It is still unknown today whether my son put up a struggle or if they just shot him for the sake of shooting him. They shot him three times, twice in the head and once in the back. They did take his car, and they left him there on the ground. His blood work came back clean. There were no drugs or alcohol in his system, he had just had a nice clean date and he was coming home. It happened less than eight minutes from the house, and what a nightmare that night was.
"I did not allow myself to go through the depression that is a deep dark hole that you can't crawl out of."
I had a husband, and I had three other children that needed me. They needed me there; they didn't need me in bed, they didn't need me drugged up, they didn't need me drunken. I can guarantee you that those are places I wanted to go. I wanted to go to bed and never wake up. There was a time where my husband didn't think that I wanted to be with him because I would lay on the couch and watch T.V. until five in the morning. It had nothing to do with him. I just could not lay my head down without starting to cry.
My neighbor would bring me homemade lunch and dinner, and if it wouldn't have been for that, I know that I wouldn't have eaten during that time. It is interesting because when you eat it brings comfort. But when you are going through a death like that, you don't want to be comforted, you want to wallow. I can understand how people can go into a depression so deep that you can not get out of it. I had to be there for my family and my friends, I would have gone there.
"It is a devastating thing to have happen, but we are not alone."
I have belonged to a few support groups to help me get through, but I still think I am in a nightmare sometimes. One morning I woke up -- you wake up crying, you just do -- and all of a sudden, my tears just dried up. I knew in my head that they were going to catch these guys. It was such an emotional relief that they were going to catch them. In some of the organizations that I have been involved with, there are people who never get to that point of finding the people who murdered their loved ones.
The support group showed me that I don't have it as bad as others do. Others have been through more horrendous issues than I have, and I am there to help them get through. There have people who have lost more than one child -- I couldn't imagine loosing more than one child -- yet they have survived. If they can do it, I can do it.
