When tragedy begins to feel like a cliche, we're in trouble. In recent weeks, young black men have murdered each other in record numbers in Pittsburgh.
Cops are stymied. Witnesses in neighborhoods under siege stick to a code of silence that undermines the quality and potential length of their lives. It's hard to find a community leader who isn't, by necessity, well-versed in the art of evasion. Solutions are never as plentiful as excuses.
And as usual, the dead aren't talking. They're too busy providing evidence that life isn't held in high esteem these days. Far from being mute statistics, the deaths of these men have generated ripples of fear and concern outside the narrow bounds of their neighborhoods.
Traditionally, it has been left to grieving mothers to speak for the dead. Whether stoical in front of television cameras or emotional wrecks at funeral services, grieving mothers have occupied the front lines in the war against the homicidal callousness that took their children's lives.
Perhaps their image has become too hackneyed for an age inured to rivulets of blood running down urban streets. In some parts of the black community, the sight of grieving mothers provides little shock value, just an expectation of the usual graveside rituals that accompany maternal loss.
But what if the spotlight were to shift from grieving mothers to the children left behind by the murdered dead? Would that provide a sufficiently compelling image to galvanize fading outrage?
Much has been made of the murder of Wally Goldston several weeks ago. He was shot as his mother drove him from the home of another neighborhood man murdered earlier in the evening.
As horrific as it must've been for Penny Goldston watching her son die, not enough has been made of the murdered man's 6-year-old daughter watching the execution of her father from the back seat of the car.
For Goldston's daughter, the legacy of his murder has even more dire implications than her grandmother's loss of a son. For the rest of her life, the daughter will have to deal with the weight of sorting out an event she doesn't understand now. In the meantime, her financially burdened and traumatized mother, herself shot when Goldston was killed, has to scramble for resources to support her family.
It is a legacy Wally Goldston's daughter shares with another estimated 21 children of 36 other victims of murders in 2001 alone. Not all witnessed a father die by gunshot, but all carry a similarly tragic burden. Last year, 61 children lost parents to homicide. Nearly 750 children have lost parents to murder in Allegheny County since 1997.
At a recent press conference sponsored by the NAACP, a phalanx of grieving mothers, a psychologist, a statistician, several community leaders and the daughter of the man whose death inspired a ministry to children of other murdered Pittsburghers, called for a dramatic shift in thinking about who the biggest victims of urban violence really are.
Adrienne Young, a grieving mother herself and a founder of The Tree of Hope, a 5-year old ministry that provides material and interfaith spiritual support to the families of young victims like her granddaughter, refers to the children of these murdered men as "innocent victims and forgotten casualties."
"Every single mother who has lost a child, we all have the same [concern]," Young said. "These young mothers are left with these children to raise alone and they're still grieving. They must somehow regain sanity, provide wholeness for their children and a nurturing family [environment]. They can't do it alone."
With her granddaughter by her side, Young made an urgent plea for a reordering of priorities when it comes to the children of these murdered young men, beginning with effective and sensitive family counseling that encompasses the children, the surviving parent and the still-grieving grandparent.
Instead of treating children like afterthoughts best dealt with by overburdened government agencies and charities, Young believes, the needs of the children should come first. The image of the grieving mother must give way to the grieving child, the biggest casualty of urban violence.
For more information about The Tree of Hope, call 412-886-1212.
Tony Norman's email: tnorman@post-gazette.com
E-mail this story 
