God told me to get up - he had a plan for me. From there, I became involved with gun control advocacy, rallying for national gun control organizations. Lucia sent her condolences and told me to reach out to her if I needed to. In the months since the shooting, I received a handwritten letter from Lucia McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was killed in 2012 from gun violence. Why I’ve thrown myself into gun control advocacy But I made myself get up on Sundays – I needed to be in the fellowship of other people. As soon as I left the sanctuary, I knew those feelings of anger and sadness were going to fly right back into my head. Some days I didn’t even want to go to church. I sat on the couch for days in the quiet with my television off – I didn’t want to be bothered with the news, a steady reminder of the shooting and its aftermath in the public eye. There were many days when I didn’t want to get up out of the bed. But when I lost my mom, I couldn’t find that strength I tried to put forth for church members. Part of my job as a chaplain is to reach out to people and be a confidant during times of loss.
But if there are five stages of grief, I am still in the anger stage, almost a year after the shooting. I don’t think I believe in the five-step process of grief. The physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of grief Why should I feel the need to forgive him when he has not asked for forgiveness? I know God commands us to forgive, but there is no time stamp – forgiveness is a journey that you allow yourself to feel because someone has wronged you. The man accused of killing my mother did not show any remorse. I understand that the people of Charleston, and of America as a whole, latched onto the overwhelming message of forgiveness as a coping mechanism.īut the focus on quick forgiveness and the pivot to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse washed away the severity of the larger issues at hand – that the accused killer, because of his hatred of black people, could be so stirred by white supremacist ideology that he would go into that church to kill my momma and all the others. They pitted us against each other in the midst of a horrific tragedy. Still, after the shooting, there were several articles that exploited our different ways of grieving. I disagreed with Nadine, but I respected her opinion – she’s my sister, and she has a right to her own emotions and grieving process. Here are 6 lessons survivors learn from tragedy.ĭon’t get me wrong. The problem with the forgiveness narrativeĪfter I saw my sister address the nation, I thought, This girl has to be crazy! Who’s going to forgive him so quickly? I was hurt that people thought Nadine’s views reflected the views of the Lance family and the thoughts of all of the Charleston nine’s loved ones. The media ran with the forgiveness narrative, praising the ability of the victims’ families for their graciousness and faith. She never got to use it.Ī mere 48 hours after the church shooting, millions of Americans watched my sister, Nadine Collier, stand in front of our mother’s accused killer and forgive him at his bond hearing. It appears to have been a racially motivated massacre plotted by a 21-year-old white man. I know God commands us to forgive, but there is no time stamp – forgiveness is a journeyĮthel Lance, my mother, was killed on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, along with my cousins Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders, and six other people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. "Ooh, girl, I can’t wait to smell good," she said. The week my mother died, I told her I was sending her a Banana Republic perfume she loved.
She ended up hiding her expensive bottles from us because we would sneak and spray ourselves so often. For special occasions like church, she spritzed my sisters and me on the wrists and behind the ears.