Mar 19, 2009 1:18 pm US/Pacific
East Bay Mother Comforts Victims of Violence
Jefferson Award Winner: Lorrain Taylor
OAKLAND (CBS 5) ―
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Lorrain Taylor comforts Ratimah X
CBS
After her 22-year-old twin sons Albade and Obadiah were shot to death nine years ago, Lorrain Taylor wrote a song.
"It's time to let the world know, gun violence is not ok," she sings with conviction.
College students Albade and Obadiah were working on their stalled car in Oakland when gunfire rang out. Just months later, Lorrain joined Oakland's Million Mom March and campaigned against the gun violence that killed them.
But she couldn't find emotional healing from their unsolved murders for several years. With her third son away at college, she doubled her caseload as a social worker to keep busy, but sank into deep depression in 2006.
"Nobody called me anymore, nobody checked on me," she remembers. "I locked myself in my room. I was very, very ill. Nobody knew how sick I was."
Then, she says, she sensed God telling her to get up.
"I pulled myself up out of the bed, and I thought, nobody came to see about me. I am not the only mother who's lost a child, and if they're going through what I'm going through, they need help."
That year, Lorrain founded the-non profit 1000 Mothers to Prevent Violence. Armed with individual donations of money and groceries, she and seven volunteers comfort families of homicide.
Lorrain says now, "I'm glad God got me out of the bed, because one lady said, 'If it wasn't for you, I would have committed suicide.'"
Lorrain and her volunteers often make themselves available to grieving families simply by getting them out of the house, bringing groceries, cleaning the house, or just listening.
"Let them know that there is a way, there is help, there is hope," Lorrain explains.
Retimah X also lost two sons to violence. She says 1000 Mothers is such a comfort, she now volunteers with Lorrain.
"This mother knows exactly what I'm going through, so I automatically felt a connection, a bond with her," Retimah explains. "That helps in my healing."
While 1000 Mothers has a new office donated by an Oakland doctor, Lorrain is still looking for a new space for support group meetings that's large enough to
host up to twenty moms twice a month.
So for preaching anti-violence from Sacramento to San Quentin, and for comforting hundreds of grieving families, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Lorrain Taylor.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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