How Long Will I Cry?

by Miles Harvey

  My God, we got letters. We got letters from strangers. We got a card from the Chicago Police Department. Cops see this kind of stuff every day, so for them to take the time out to write a letter of condolence was really saying something to us.

  There was a peace march that was organized by a group of friends a couple weeks after his death. The community was outraged, and it was like, enough is enough. This has to stop. I don’t know if there’s been a response like that in Pilsen. There are marches. A lot of them have to do with political issues like immigration, but I don’t know if there’s ever been one that’s been sparked by gang violence or by murder. The route of the march actually was Jeff’s last ride home. It ended up here at Dvorak Park. It was a really healing thing.

  We are artists, and we had to do something in our own way. So that meant focusing it on making a documentary about Jeff and sharing his music. The film is part of a greater enterprise that we call the J-Def Peace Project. The J-Def Peace Project has a couple components to it: One is a visual art component, so that means painting murals and raising awareness of Jeff.

  For me, these past two years have been about trying to keep myself busy enough, but in a creative way. I feel a very clear sense of intention in what I’m doing right now. I’m the most creative I’ve been. I’ve produced a series of drawings called “Secret Language,” and all the drawings were inspired by Jeff. The goal was to create work that commemorated Jeff but also was really about how the three of us communicated at home. There’s all kinds of imagery, from a june bug to a juniper tree, to a scooter, to two vinyl albums. That was just a way for me to work through loss, and do so in a way where I wasn’t throwing Jeff’s story down people’s throats.

  After Jeff’s death, I got called by the Mexican Art Museum and asked if I wanted to paint an ofrenda, an altar, in one of the gallery spaces. It was for Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, a three-month exhibit. I didn’t want to do it, but I needed to do it. It was just part of the process.

  The final piece of this installation included a six-minute music video and handwritten notes written by Jeff’s friends and people who wanted to say good-bye in their own way. Some of the messages were really personal. Some of them I couldn’t read. It was almost like reading someone’s diary. I just took pictures of them, and someday I’ll read them.

  In the ofrenda, I used vinyl albums to spell his name out. I used about 80 albums and painted them gold. The idea “the universe unfolds as it should” is represented in the clouds and in this passageway. Everybody in the museum had to go through this portal to exit, so the idea is that this symbolizes the transition from earth to heaven that everybody has to go through.

  When visitors would come to see the ofrenda and spend time listening to the music, and then read the handwritten notes, I felt like they had achieved a sense of fulfillment. They knew who Jeff was now. They connected with him. Now they were ready to move on. And it was good for me, too, so that I can move on.

  It’s easy to lose faith in humanity when something like this happens, you know? And Elizabeth and I, we have definite questions about why this happened to us, why this happened to Jeff. The least likely person. But we do believe that he has fulfilled his role and is still fulfilling his role. Things are happening because they’re supposed to happen this way. It’s tough. But there’s a greater purpose to it. Now, we have to figure out what that is.

  —Interviewed by Kristin Scheffers

  Endnotes

  75 Signed into law in the month following the September 11 attacks in 2001,

  the Patriot Act expanded the government’s authority to secretly search private records and monitor communications. It has been controversial ever since.

  THE FUNERAL HOME LADY

  CATHLENE JOHNSON

  Funerals have increasingly become the settings of gang-related violence in Chicago. In November of 2012, for example, one man was killed and another critically wounded outside a service for a slain gang leader at St. Columbanus Catholic Church on the South Side. In the aftermath of that tragedy, Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared that police would begin to have a stronger presence at the funerals of reputed gang members.

  As general manager of the Johnson Funeral Home in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side, Cathlene Johnson has a unique view of gang-related murders—and of their tragic impact on the people left behind. When we spoke to her a few weeks after the shootings at St. Columbanus, she had just completed two high-profile funerals at which police stepped up security in order to make sure there were no revenge killings. “We’ve had an eventful few days around here,” she said.

  Johnson has been in the family business at Smith & Thomas Funeral Homes for 10 years. Her people are from Arkansas originally, and although she is a native Chicagoan, there is a slight twang in her voice. Despite frequent interruptions and visitors poking their heads into her office, Johnson is never too busy to address a concern. The 40-ish Johnson, who has old-fashioned views about the etiquette of discussing her exact age, dresses in suits with minimal jewelry, and describes herself as a no-nonsense problem-solver. She talks animatedly with large hand gestures.

  It’s always kind of funny when people walk up to you on the street or in the grocery store. Of course, I know where I know them from, but they don’t always remember. So they say, “Hey, I know you…” I give them a little time, and we talk. And then it comes to them. “Oh, you buried my father,” and I’ll say, “Yes,” and I always try to remember little details about them. It’s a chance for the community to connect with you. Just as a person.

  Smith & Thomas has been a big part of the Austin community since 1984. I worked downtown for so long and, just being here in the Austin-Oak Park-Forest Park area, it has that downtown flavor without that hustle-bustle. It’s kind of artsy and diverse. It has a simplicity about it that I like. And there’s a lot of openness, too. Openness of people. It has a small-town feel to it.

  I think it’s important to get to know your neighbors. These are my neighbors, and they call me the Funeral Home Lady. We are part of this community whether the people want us here or not. Death is a part of life. And so the funeral home is a part of the community. We will handle the death part, but we participate in the life part of the community, too. That’s what I want you to know about us: that we are an essential part of the community.

  I left the Chicago Tribune, where I was in human resources, in 2000 to start my own business. And I did that, consulting, for a little while. Then my aunt here at the funeral home, Miss Williams, got sick. She asked me to come over and manage the financial and accounting operation while she was doing her recovery. And so I came over here to help out, and I’ve been here ever since. So that’s how I got integrated into the family business.

  When people come in here, they have no idea what to do. It’s just an emotional shock, a spiritual shock, a physical shock. And I have the opportunity to help somebody who’s very distraught, walk them through a process, be gentle, have them come out with an end product that’s celebratory of somebody’s life, something that they’re proud of. So, just to help somebody through a very, very difficult time—there’s a lot of satisfaction in that.

  To be a general manager—I like to think of myself as insurance. I am Miss Smith’s insurance that everything is gonna go well. I do a lot of trouble-shooting on issues. One of the things about funeral service—you only get one chance to do it right. There’s no do-over.

  Now, at services, people have all kind of things going on. They have musicians, they have choirs, they have video presentations. So you’re doing a lot of little things. People not being here on time—you rework the service sometimes. Keeping things orderly, which I would say is the most important thing that we do during a service. Because people sometimes respond to grief in a violent way, you can have a service that gets emotionally out of hand. You have to call the police. You have to escort people out. You also have to be sensitive to what’s going on with your staff. You got to be looking to see if you have a pr
oblem, if somebody is a problem.

  Man, we’ve had a couple services. We have learned our way through young people’s services, especially when it’s related to violence. Because we’ve had lots and lots of incidents at the funeral home related to violence. One of our policies is we don’t do night services for young people who have died of violence. The family has to have a day service. We have undercover police who come to do security. We have emergency buttons throughout the funeral home so, if you have a situation, all you have to do is push the button. During those services, we’re all on high alert.

  Crowd control is so important. You may need to bring in additional staff, because they come out in droves. I mean, you get these really large crowds and a lot of young people congregating. We had one service where people were lined up from the funeral home about five blocks to see this guy in a single-file line.

  I always call Mr. Thomas over to work the front door because, all these young guys, they come in with their hats on. We have a no-hat policy. Mr. Thomas, he says, “Young man, remove your hat!” A lot of their hats, they have gang affiliations. And then some of them say, “I ain’t taking off my hat!” And then Mr. Thomas says, “Young man, you got two options. You can remove your hat and go into the viewing or you have to leave the premises.” We are never disrespectful no matter how disrespectful they are to you. And some of these people—they get really mean. It’s not because they’re bad people. It’s because they’re overwhelmed by grief and they don’t know what to do with it. And sometimes, my staff gets the brunt of their anger.

  We’ve had fights at the funeral home. One time, we had a shooting. This was at the other location, on Madison. It was a huge night, so many people there. I heard shooting, and then the next thing I heard was just

  total confusion. I mean, people ran and scattered everywhere. The good thing about Madison is they’re right across the street from the 15th District police station.

  I had a family, we had some problems with them going to the cemetery in terms of the procession. They blocked off the traffic. They escorted themselves, which they can’t legally do. It’s their boy, and they’re out there drinking, and it’s just crazy. I told my staff, “Don’t pass words with these young men. If it got to be aggressive, just walk away.” You never know what people might do in response to their grief.

  The number-one question I get is, “What happens to dead people? What happens to you after you die?”

  Young people will ask that question. That’s one of the saddest things for me—seeing children so torn by death. And the easiest thing is to go to a religious answer, but I always ask them, “What do you think?” Because what they want to do is talk. You don’t necessarily have to push your beliefs off on anybody else. All you have to do is sit there and listen.

  The kids think that they’re invincible. And so then they’re faced with someone they know who they also thought was invincible, so it challenges everything they thought they knew. All of a sudden, you realize you don’t know nothing.

  The young people have different ways in which they express that grief. There is some of the traditional crying and mourning, but I see a lot of artistic type of things. Lots of poetry and, you know, they have raps. You have to give them a voice, incorporating young people into the service so they could have a form of expression, so they could have closure, too. I definitely see some changes in the industry in terms of how younger people funeralize people. They don’t want to do traditional things; they want to do their services their way.

  When younger people die, memorial T-shirts are a big item. The kids wear them the day of the service, but then they frame them and they

  put them up in their rooms. The shirts actually become a memorial. But

  the other thing that I saw, too, was older people will buy them because it’s

  an easier way to dress young people for the funeral. They can honor the memory of that person and they don’t have to spend so much attention on

  what are the kids going to wear. It’s kind of an appropriate thing to do now at the service.

  I have nieces and nephews, and I definitely don’t want them to show up in this funeral home with these issues. So I spend a lot of time with them.

  My nephew CJ is ten. My sister Tesa let him get braids and he has the cornrows going to the back of his hair. When she let him get the braids, I really objected to it. I said, “Tesa, he looks like a little thug.” And she said, “Well, he’s not a little thug.” And I said, “Well, I know that, and you know that, but the way that he looks…”

  I tell CJ all the time, “I don’t like your braids. I don’t like ‘em at all.” So he’ll say, “Auntie Cat, I want some new gym shoes.” And I’ll tell him, “If you cut your hair, I’ll buy you some new gym shoes.” My sister gets mad at me because I do that. I just don’t want him to get in the wrong crowd. If it looks like a duck…

  I’ll tell you this. I saw somebody breaking into one of my neighbors’ houses, some young men. I knew that my neighbor was out of town. And so when I saw those guys back there, I knew that they didn’t belong there. I immediately picked up the phone and called the police.

  The police called me 10 minutes later and they told me they had picked up three guys who fit the description I gave them. The men that were breaking into the house, they had on standard teenage stuff: red or white T-shirt, pair of jeans. So when the police officer drove me over to where they had stopped them, these guys were younger, but they were dressed exactly the same. Now, if I wasn’t so certain about what I saw, I could have said, “Oh yeah, that’s them,” when it really wasn’t.

  So I told my sister that’s why I don’t want CJ to have braids. And he’s gotten beat up a couple times. He’s been bullied the last couple months on his way home from school, and I told him it has a lot to do with the way he looks. That visual is very, very powerful, so I think we have to send our kids some other messages. There’s no way I want my nephews rolled in here one day.

  What I hear from the kids these days is that they’re bored. And I’m sure they are bored—TV and video games, that’s not a lot of satisfaction. There’s nothing for the kids to do. And all you really see is them walking around, sitting on the porch. My little nieces and nephews, they’ll say, “I’m bored.” And I tell them, “That’s because you are boring. You’re a boring person. What kind of interests do you have? What kinds of things interest you?” They say, “I don’t know.” Well, you have to figure that out.

  One of the funeral staff here was telling me about a house party in Austin. Three people got killed at the party the other night. She said somebody turned off the lights, and two boys and a girl were shot. And to me, they got to have more creative things to do, you know? We got to give them outlets that produce something else. I don’t have the answers, I don’t know what they are, but a house party? That’s not it.

  Do I believe in ghosts? No, not really. I believe that there is a spiritual world along with the physical world, but I don’t ever expect any of these dead people to get up and walk around, you know? These people who have died are so peaceful, they’re not gonna bother you. You just have to know what you believe about dead people, and what I believe is that the dead have no power over the living. I think of it as an egg. Your egg is your body and you got a yolk and you got the whites. Those are the inner parts of you. And what we’re left with at the funeral home, what we deal with, is the shell of the egg. That’s it. And the rest has gone on.

  When I get burned out from the emotional piece of the funeral home, I go home to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and my mommy. It’s a really emotionally burdensome job. When you’re drained, you’re drained. Because you have to show up, you have to be present, you have to be there for the family. And you can’t turn away from that.

  I wonder all the time: “How in the hell did I get here?” I never really planned to stay. It’s really the people that keep you here. It’s an experience like no experience you could ever have. And, a lot of people, they think it’s weird
. They think it’s strange until they’ve had the experience themselves.

  Funeral directors, we’re really happy people on the inside. I think that’s the biggest misperception, that we’re this gloom and doom. I’ve had people say, “Why are you smiling?” Some people find it offensive, actually. That’s one of the things that I tell new interns and people coming on: “People are mad and angry, but they’re not mad and angry at you. They’re mad and angry that their loved one just died. And every once in a while, one of them might take it out on you.” People who work at a funeral home, they see just how short and fragile life is, and so they’re happy not to be on the back table.

  Don’t delay anything. Because you never know. You never, never know. I’m happy because I got another day to live my life. Because death is a non-discriminator. Young, old, black, white, purple, green—it doesn’t matter.

  Oh my God, I don’t even watch the news. Violence just walks through the door every day; the news happens here. I see what it does to people.

  One of my clients comes back and we talk all the time. Her son was killed, and she is just so hurt. She just comes and she talks and she cries. You can’t really do anything; you just listen. You carry the burden. Here’s a person that feels comfortable enough with you to say some things to you that she could probably never say to anybody else.

  I try to let people have their moment. A lot of times, they’re trying to reason it out in their own heads. I’ve been with mothers where their children have been the victims, and mothers whose sons are the perpetrators, and neither one of them can understand it. Sometimes it’s like you’re talking to the same person.

  —Interviewed by Molly Tranberg

  THE SCAR TELLS A STORY

  DAISY CAMACHO

  In Chicago, violence and poverty go together like bullets and guns. According to The Chicago Reporter,76 nearly 80 percent of recent youth homicides (kids killed under the age of 21) took place in 22 low-income black or Latino communities on the city’s South, Southwest and West Sides—even though just one-third of the city’s population lives in those areas.77 The report concluded: “It is nearly impossible to curb youth violence without addressing the underlying social conditions” including “limited access to higher education [and] violence-plagued and under-funded public schools.”