It Was the Mothers

A friend wrote me today, "I had lunch with Marilyn on Wednesday and her phone wouldn't stop ringing...it was the mothers."

Today, Chip Johnson, in his San Francisco Chronicle column, told a similar story: 

The grieving, heartsick mothers who have contacted Harris in the past two weeks didn't do it out of spite or anger or jealousy, but from a collective pain that anyone who's ever been through such a tragic loss is all too familiar with. "Our hearts go out to her because she suffers from what we all suffer from," Harris said of Martin's mother, Sybrina Martin. "There are no color boundaries when it comes to our children." But when an Oakland mother who has lost a child sees local churches and activists gearing up, determined to do something about a killing so far away, and seemingly oblivious to the near-daily tragedies occurring in their own city, it hurts, Harris said.