ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A Rochester mother who lost her son to gun violence wants to create a support system for other moms going through the same thing — grieving the sudden loss of their children at the hands of someone else.
Many mothers who have experienced similar tragedies say no one understands the pain they’re going through.
Three of those mothers sat down with Spectrum News 1 reporter Brianna Hamblin to talk about helping each other and the message they have for the city.
They revealed what they would say to their sons if they had the chance.
“I did have a dream and I did tell him that I loved him and I missed him and he said mom I love you and I miss you too,” Marvetta Cook said.
“It would be nothing else but I need you here,” said Titiana Bogar. “I need my fav five to be whole again. So that I can be whole again.”
“My son was like my friend so I don’t have that anymore,” said Gwendolyn Allen. “I just miss everything about him.”
Cook lost her son Trenton in June 2020 after he was shot on North Clinton Avenue. He was 35 years old.
Bogar, a close friend of Cook, lost her son Ly’saun in October 2020 on Trenaman street. He was 18.
And Allen’s son Armani died after being shot and stabbed outside of the RTS Transit Center last month on the day the city broke a record for most homicides in a year. He was 24. The next day, the city declared a state of emergency in an effort to fight the ongoing violence.
The 2021 homicide rate sadly didn’t slow down after Armani's killing, leaving a growing number of mothers feeling broken.
“I still sometimes accidentally call his phone thinking he’s going to pick up,” Allen said. "Losing a child just hits different. Can’t explain the pain, it’s just always pain.”
This is why Bogar is working on a nonprofit called Mothers with Children Against Violence.
“This group is just what can we do to benefit each other," said Bogar. "I'm hurting, you're hurting, you're hurting. What can we do for the next mother God forbid she hurts and she gotta go through this and don’t have nothing that we were blessed with?"
Consistent support and a sisterhood that no mother wants to be a part of, but too many mothers need.
As they mourn, they want nothing more than to get to the root of the problem.
“For black children, there are no resources," said Allen. "So they are forced to find their own way, some on the streets, some selling drugs. They're lost. As parents, you can only do so much.”
They say they would like to see more funding put into local rec centers and more adults working in them who will make sure children have a safe place after school and role models to look up to.
“If you want them off the streets you gotta give them a place to go,” Allen said.
“I also feel like it starts at home," Cook said. "There’s a lot of single mothers raising boys. A mother cannot raise a boy to be a man. We need fathers to step up."
“We've lost that it takes a village to raise a child," said Bogar. "They run to the streets. The men on the streets are their role models. Where are children 14 and under getting access to guns? It’s the streets because they’re around these older men that are their role models.”
The mothers also have a message for anyone thinking of taking someone else's life.
“You have to think about your actions and what it may cause to family members and friends," Cook said. "You can’t take it back once you pull that trigger.”
“No one, and I mean no one, should make you that angry that you want to see them dead,” Allen said.
“You’re not just causing that mother to be in pain, but you’re going to cause your own mother to be in pain because your life is going to be taken just as well when you’re caught," said Bogar. "We both lose in the end but I’m losing worse.
So they are begging people to end the violence so more mothers don’t have to feel what they’re feeling.
The three mothers talked about multiple issues, too many to fit in this story. One of them being the state's bail reform law and how they say it was the reason their sons' killers were out of jail and able to do what they did. They say they plan to speak out about this.
Bogar says she also plans to help other moms with the cost of funerals and bring these families together so the siblings of these victims will have a community that understands.