Sharon Rose sat in a circle, listening as others shared memories of loved ones lost to violence. She had volunteered at events for crime victims for years. But she had never spoken.
When her turn came, she didn’t know what to say.
After her brother Gregory was shot and killed in 1977, she said, it was as if her family packed every memory of him into a box and sealed it. No one spoke his name. Sharon, who was 17, never stopped thinking about her tall, handsome brother.
She is one of dozens of Greater Clevelanders who joined a workshop led by Dr. Yvonne Pointer-McCreary, with support from Signal Cleveland, helping families tell how their loved ones lived — the parts that never made the news. For Yvonne, that’s remembering how her daughter Gloria came home from school and ate cold grits, not the details of her 1984 murder.
Sharon wrote about a day when she was five and Gregory took her to a carnival at East 79th and Kinsman. After hours of rides, she was so tired he lifted her onto his shoulders and carried her all the way home — all 6 foot 7 inches of him.
As she wrote, she began talking with siblings and relatives. With each conversation, Gregory felt more present. “It just opened my mind,” she said. Only then did she realize how much weight she had been carrying.
Her finished story is only a few pages. But it changed something.
Her daughter helped her find Gregory’s gravesite. They cleaned it up. This past Thanksgiving, about 20 relatives gathered to celebrate his birthday, Nov. 23 — with chicken, potato salad and cake. In a video, they sing to him for the first time in 48 years.
When we are at our best as a community, everyone who experiences a violent loss has the opportunity to be storytellers for the person they loved. Click on the images below to read the stories. We’re also creating explainers to help families navigate their rights. If you know someone who wants to join the next workshop, they can sign up here.
