JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerMcCleary, 53, is a soft-spoken but passionate advocate against gun violence. In 2017, she cofounded Moms Bonded by Grief. Group members meet regularly, their numbers rising alongside the homicides in the city. They support one another and the efforts they take up in hopes of keeping others from joining a group no one wishes to be a part of. Together, they meet with public officials, they attend marches and protests, they establish foundations and scholarships in honor of children they never got to see graduate.
But now McCleary wanted to do more; she had to. Not just for her granddaughter, but for all the children whose encounters with gun violence remained ever-present. For a few days, sheâd get them out of Philadelphia.
âYour pain is normalâ
McCleary arrived at the Philadelphia Mills mall parking lot early one August morning with a sleepy and hungry 14-year-old granddaughter and 13-year-old cousin squeezed into a car full of supplies. Bags and boxes overflowed with food and games for the weekend trip to the Kalahari Resorts Waterpark, about 80 miles outside the city in the Pocono Mountains.
The mothers had planned all kinds of activities, including an early Christmas party where the women would transform a drab conference room into a festive holiday celebration. But there would be something else: an opportunity for the children to talk to grief counselors. No adults allowed in their sessions, so they could speak from the heart.
From left, Aniyah Webster, with her sister Gianna Webster, 8, and cousin Taylor Webster, 5, board the bus for the retreat.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Emeer McClellan boards the bus for the retreat.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Hamzah Thompson waits outside the Philadelphia Mills mall for the bus to the Poconos.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerAfter watching her granddaughter continue to struggle years after her motherâs death, McCleary was determined to give children like her the chance to unload some of the burdens they often carried in silence.
âIf these children do not get help, theyâre going to self-destruct,â McCleary said. âFor someone to violently take your parent from you, it builds up anger.
âI wanted to let them know: Your pain is normal. Youâre not alone.â
Even if they chose not to participate in the grief counseling, she at least wanted to show them there was more to life than the violence many of them encountered every day.
âI donât think itâs fairâ
About 30 children made their way toward the waiting bus; 20 more met them at the waterpark. Some of the youngest pulled tiny roller bags with images of colorful cartoon characters and glittered unicorns. Alongside them the adults wore familiar uniforms: memorial T-shirts and necklaces with the photos of murdered loved ones.
Hamzah Thompson wears a necklace with a photograph of his brother Quadir Noel, who was shot and killed in January.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerMcCleary and the other mothers had planned the long weekend for months. Theyâd even hosted a gathering at a community garden on Greenway Avenue so the kids could get to know one another before the trip.
Thatâs where I first met Linwood Bowser, an 11-year-old who confided before boarding the bus that he was a little nervous. He hoped the other kids liked him. He hoped to make some new friends, ones who understood what it felt like to lose so much at such a young age.
Linwood, who goes by Wood, was named after the 20-year-old father he never knew but whose death in 2010 cast a large shadow over his life. Wood wonders what it would have been like if his father were still alive. He worries, a lot, about losing other family members. What would happen to him, he asks, if he lost his mother or his grandmother?
Linwood Bowser and his grandmother Vonda. Linwood, who goes by Wood, was named after his father, who was shot and killed before he was born.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Shonda McClellan and her son Emeer. Shondaâs daughter Erica McClellan was killed on Nov. 12, 2017.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Johndell Gredic and her 5-year-old grandson, Nacear Gredic Jr. Nacearâs father and Johndellâs son was killed on May 25, 2015.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer Wood quickly became one of my favorites, a baby-faced sage full of woeful wisdom.
âThere are people who are in pain, and they want the world to feel what they feel,â heâd said when I asked him why he thought people picked up guns.
I was both charmed and heartbroken by him. Anguish ages children in such cruel and unfair ways.
When his grandmother recounted the day her son was gunned down across the street from her home, the boy leaned in, trying hard not to look too interested before asking: âSo you were there when my father died?â
As his grandmother quietly wept, he slipped his hand into hers and asked nothing more.
From left, Emeer McClellan, Jahzear Gredic, and Linwood Bowser check out the elephant at the pool.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
From left, Jahzear Gredic, Zakhai McCleary, and Linwood Bowser wait patiently for family members to finish their counseling session and take them to the pool again.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Linwood Bowser plays with the other kids in the pool. He had been worried about making new friends before the retreat began.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerOver the course of the weekend, it would become clear that many of the children affected by violence have questions they donât always ask, painfully protective of the ones most trying to protect them.
âItâs trauma, itâs all trauma,â said McCleary, who in addition to her daughter has lost four uncles, her only brother, and her brother-in-law to gun violence. And then, just this year, a nephew and a cousin.
âThis has been a year for us. ... They canât get over one death before theyâre faced with another.â
McCleary was a corrections officer for 15 years, but a couple of years after her daughter was killed, she left the job, unable to be in the same space with those who had inflicted on others the kind of suffering she lived with every day.
Sonya Dixon plays with her great-granddaughters Maliyah (left) and Kaliah McNeil at the Kalahari arcade. The girlsâ father died Sept. 18, 2018.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerâIt affects you, your marriage, your livelihood, your career, your health, your mental health, your physical. It affects everything once someone violently takes your child from you,â she said. âIt took me years to find myself in a good place.â
Around the time the group was at the resort, an average of three children a week were being shot in Philadelphia, including a 15-year-old girl who was playing basketball outside a city recreation center, and later died. On Aug. 17, she became the 137th child shot this year, one of more than 50 children 18 and younger who were killed in Philadelphia. Just a month later, the city would reach a grim milestone: More than 400 lives lost, mostly to guns.âI donât think itâs fair. Thereâs kids in there thatâs like 6, younger than 6. I donât know who they lost, but why they got to lose them for?âAlan Williams, 15
But that weekend in late August was a temporary respite from all that was and was to come. At that resort, the kids swam and played in the arcade. Some of the teenagers were able to walk around the quiet, grassy grounds on their own, even if they were called back before it got too late. The mothers, too, seemed able to breathe a little easier.
âItâs just nice to get away,â said Sonya Dixon. âTo put some distance between you and whatâs always weighing you down.â Dixon was there with the 8- and 7-year-old daughters of one of two grandsons she lost to gun violence in just 15 months in 2017 and 2018.
So it was no wonder that when it was time for the children to participate in the grief counseling, a few of the women lingered, ears pressed to the closed door until they heard the sound of laughter on the other side.
There wasnât a child there who hadnât suffered multiple losses.
McClearyâs granddaughter and other relatives tried to recount just how many people in their lives had been killed. They had lost friends, cousins, uncles, parents, siblings â at least 10 people among the four teenagers, none of whom was older than 15.
Hamzah Thompson, 13, (left) with his cousin Alan Williams, 15. Hamzahâs brother Quadir Noel was shot and killed in January, and Alan has lost multiple relatives and friends.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Ghazalah Washington, 14, lost her mother, Tamara Johnson, when she was 2.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Derion Tyree, 13, lost her father, Tyrone Tyree Jr. in March 2019. Her best friend was also shot and killed.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerThey were sometimes guarded when they spoke, acutely aware of the trauma of others â sometimes even minimizing their losses while sympathizing with others theyâd decided suffered more.
âI donât think itâs fair,â said Alan Williams, 15, whose friend and two cousins were killed. âThereâs kids in there thatâs like 6, younger than 6. I donât know who they lost, but why they got to lose them for?â
Like her grandmother, Ghazalah could be reserved, especially around grown-ups. But when asked what adults could do better to help children like them, she didnât hesitate:
âListen.â
Six-year-old Dwain Garner III lost his uncle Dyshon on Aug. 30, 2017.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerâSome parents, when kids ask them about the person who died, some like shut them out and donât listen to them,â she said. âThey want to know about them and what happened. Thatâs how I felt when my mom died and my dad didnât want to talk about her.
âBut then, heâs also going through the pain Iâm going through. He lost her, too.â
McCleary, who sat nearby, became emotional. But confronting the hard stuff was the point of the weekend.
Kaliah McNeil, 8, and Maliyah McNeil, 6, lost their father, Kenyon Allford, on Sept. 18, 2018, and an uncle, Zakiyy Allford, on June 19, 2017.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Saniyah Garner, 4.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Saiir Garner, 8. Their father, Dyshon, was killed on Aug. 30, 2017.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerAt the grief session for the adults, there were even more tears, and admissions of suffocating despair masked behind shows of strength. The traumatized trying to tend to the traumatized.
âWe as parents going through this, we barely know how to help ourselves,â said Shonda McClellan, whose 17-year-old daughter, Erica, was killed in 2017.
In a futile attempt to erase the memory of identifying her daughterâs body after she was shot, McClellan had filled her home with photos of her.
âTime doesnât heal all wounds,â she said. âWeâre not strong, weâre broken.â
During a counseling session with other mothers, Darnetta Green-Mason gets emotional talking about her son who was killed in 2007.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
From left, Linwood Bowser, Zakhai McCleary, and Jahzear Gredic talk while taking a break from swimming.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Grief counselor Kevin Carter (center) leads a therapy session with the mothers.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerOne woman, who had lost multiple family members, spoke of all the ways she and her family attempted to ease the grief of the children in her family. With love, of course. But also with trips and toys and distractions that always fell short because there are no shortcuts through heartache.
Another woman feared that her 5-year-old grandson was developing an indifference to death. She worried something was wrong with him.
Thereâs nothing wrong with him, one of the counselors told her. A lot has happened to him.For a few moments, his words were met with silence as the women considered what he had said, how it cut to the very heart of what they were battling to overcome.
And then the women did what they always do. They wiped their tears, set aside their own anguish, and went to check on the kids.
Saiir Garner, 8, Sharon Smith, Aleishia Garner, 8 months old, and Saniyah Garner, 4, (front center) participate in the Winter Wonderland Party. The mothers transformed a conference room into an early Christmas party for the children.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff PhotographerNow it was time for McCleary to relax and reflect on the weekend that was nearly over.
âI was just hoping all the way up here that the children would feel free and comfortable to talk and just be children and enjoy themselves,â she said. âI think that weâre going to all walk away with a sense of knowing that we would do anything we can to keep our children happy and to get them the help that they need.
âThis is just a beginning.â
McCleary wished it wasnât so, but already she could see the need for another retreat next year. Miles away, the unrelenting gun violence in the city guaranteed it.
Shonda McClellan, waiting for the bus to take them back home, wears a blanket with a photograph of her daughter, Erica. Erica was shot and killed on Nov. 12, 2017.JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer