I got the call while I was in a meeting,” recalls Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton. “Normally, I would have let it go, but something said take the call. It was one of Hadiya’s friends and she was screaming from her gut, ‘Hadiya’s been shot! Hadiya’s been shot!’ I’m hearing her but I’m screaming too, ‘Where’s my baby? I don’t understand what you are saying!'”
With the murder of their 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya, still fresh in their memories, the Pendletons recall the moment they learned of their child’s death in a heart-rending conversation with ESSENCE magazine.
In the emotional interview, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton share their struggle to move forward after losing their firstborn child to gun violence in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood.
“I’m not grieving because she or I did anything wrong,” explains Cleopatra, “I’m grieving because I miss who she was going to become.”
The hurting family refuses to let their daughter’s death be in vain and shared their new mission to help fight against illegal firearms.
CLICK HERE to read story
article courtesy of Essence.com
