We don’t fit in to what most people’s
families look like. We don’t even look like each other. I am Irish,
Scottish, English and Russian-Jew. The boys are of Mexican and
African heritage, because their father’s grandfather is part
African. And Siu, her parents were originally from China, and they
migrated here.
Early on, we recognized that and we wanted to
have something that would allow us to feel like we were connected,
so we came up with this family acronym of the MMV family, which is
the McCormack-Moy-Valencia family. It was a way to feel like we
were a team. On a family trip, we once found T-shirts, which for
some weird reason said, “MMV, a team that can’t be beat!” That’s
how we felt—together, we were invincible.
It was a very open, very honest, very
down-to-earth, very caring home environment. We ate dinners
together most nights of the week. We always had a family day, which
was our day not to do work and our day to play together and go do
things and hang out. We made a big deal about all the special stuff
in life, the holidays and special occasions and milestones. We just
had an incredible energy. People were like, “Wow, this is amazing.”
And it
was
amazing.
I mean, it’s destroyed now. But it was really
amazing while it lasted.
Frankie was a fireball when he was little.
And I had to be very intentional about parenting him, with behavior
modification and all kinds of things to give him channels for that
energy.
He really loved learning and he loved
information and he loved facts. He was just so analytical and
inquisitive and ready to challenge things at such a young age. And
people were really attracted to his energy. People wanted to be
around him. He was a leader at school. He just had that
confidence.
My goal was to stop the cycles of dysfunction
and chaos I grew up with and to be the first person in the family
to raise a child who could actually have a childhood. And I felt
like I did that. He had a great childhood, other than going through
the divorce. But that was hard for Frankie. He really wished that
his father and I had stayed together. It was really hard for him to
give that up.
Frankie loved playing basketball and
football, so he was hanging out with a lot of testosterone, a lot
of guys who were all about being guys. I think it was in high
school when he finally started to see examples of people being gay,
other than Siu and me. And after he stopped feeling like he had
this big secret, he started to not only be okay with it, but he
started celebrating it, going to the gay-pride parades and wearing
T-shirts about his gay family.
When he was around 17 or 18, he really
started to question life. And he started coming up with these crazy
things, like, “Mom, what if I decide to be homeless for a
year?”
And I’m trying not to react to that, right?
“Well, why would you want to have
that
experience,
Frankie?”
And he’s like, “I want to know what it’s like
to live a life where you’re not connected to material things. What
would that be like?”
You know, he just started questioning
himself. What did he want to be? What did he want to do? What was
important? That was the big question for him: What kind of man do I
want to be?
Barack Obama—that was the first place he
started to find the answer. Back when Obama was still just a state
senator, Frankie fell in love with him. Literally. He had, it was a
little bit of an obsession over this guy. He felt like he could
relate to him because Obama had this really unique background, and
he used that background to his advantage. Frankie was very inspired
by the idea that a man of color could challenge the status quo in
the way that Obama was willing to do.
By the time he was a senior at DePaul,
Frankie’s plan was, “I’m going to take a year off and do service
abroad, volunteering in a Latin American country. Then, I’m going
to go to law school, so that I can eventually have a political
career. I’d like to start out as an alderman. Then I could be
mayor. And then…”
This kid was such a planner, such a planner.
He believed he was going to change the world. And I know that you
hear people say that, but I’m telling you: Frankie believed that he
was going to change the world.
Halloween in our family—you know, we just did
it up. Every year, my partner and I would have all the little
cousins come over and we’d have a party. And they would color
pumpkins and bob apples, and our house was one of the most
decorated on the block. So that night, Frankie came over and he
went trick-or-treating with his little cousins, and put on a mask
and was being very silly.
But I remember him being tired, and he seemed
kind of down. We stood in our kitchen, and I looked in his face,
and he said, “You know, Mom, I don’t know if I’m going to go out
tonight.”
And I held his face in my hands, and I said,
“Frankie, you’re 21. This is the time to go out and have fun.”
And he said, “Yeah, I’m going to go to school
and see what everybody’s doing. I don’t know if I’m going to go out
or not.”
I thought that he had just overextended
himself, because he always
overextended himself. A couple of weeks earlier, we’d gotten word
that Frankie had won the Lincoln Laureate Award.86 He had also
been
nominated to do an internship at the White House. And he had been
the featured speaker at the annual Diversity Brunch at DePaul,87
hosted by
the university’s president. He was very excited about that because
he liked seeing himself as a public speaker. It’s what he saw
himself doing in
the future.
So when people would ask me, “How’s Frankie?”
I would say, “He’s on fire. Nothing is going to stop him now.”
And I really believed it.
That night, for the first time in 10 years,
my partner Siu and I decided to go out for Halloween. A bunch of
us—my ex-husband and my brother-in-law, my best friend and her
niece—went to a Halloween party at a bar in Wicker Park, right
there on North Avenue by Damen. My costume was like a witch-type,
black cape thing that was very long and a little sexy. I felt
pretty good. Dancing was always something I loved to do. So I
danced. I was on top of the world.
While we were there, Frankie and his dad
started texting each other, and he tells us that he’s going to this
party and that he would let us know when he was leaving so we could
all meet up. We thought he was going to a party in Wrigleyville
with a friend from high school. We had no idea that hadn’t
happened. I just assumed we’d see him later that night at another
party, at a bar in Lincoln Square.88
But once we got to that other party, Siu
started not feeling well, so she and I decided to leave. When we
came home, Victor was sleeping on the couch in the living room. I
was still wearing my Halloween costume. Then Siu gets a phone
call.
She says, “Joy! Go change out of those
clothes right now! We’ve got to go. Right now! We’ve got to
go.”
And I was like, “What’s going on?”
And then she said, “Just do it, just do it
now. Just do it!”
And so I ran upstairs and I changed my
clothes. And Siu doesn’t tell me what’s happened. So we’re in the
car, and she’s driving, and she’s driving crazy. And I’m like,
“Siu, what is going on? I’m freaking out.”
And then she said, “Frankie’s been shot.”
The next thing I know I’m in this room, this
big room upstairs at Illinois Masonic Hospital and there’s a bunch
of people already there. So then this, I don’t know who came, a
lady, a nurse, something, and I was like, “Where is he?” And I
started trying to slam through the door to get to him and a bunch
of people started holding me back.
They said, “No, they’re working on him. You
can’t see him.”
I’m like, “No! I have to see him. I have to
be there with him.”
They would never let me go back and see
him.
Until he was already gone.
The scene at the hospital was a nightmare. I
was out of control. I was begging people to kill me. I tried
killing myself several times. I kept on trying to find objects to
cut my wrists. I tried to take shoelaces off of people. Finally, I
got a key chain and I got into the bathroom and I locked myself in
and I twisted it around my neck as hard as I could until there
wasn’t any more give. And the key chain broke and a security guard
and the police busted the door open.
Eventually, Victor got there, and we went
back to see Frankie. I was numb by then. I was beyond any feeling.
I tried to give Frankie a hug and it was just ... They had tried to
clean him up, but there was blood coming through the sheets and ...
And then I walked right out of the hospital, and walked down
Wellington, towards the lake, and I was planning on jumping in and
letting myself drown.
They found me before I got to the lake, and
they got me to come back. And we came home and went to Frankie’s
room and lay in his bed. But things just got very bad after
that—worse than you could imagine your worst nightmare being. I
didn’t eat for 11 days. I couldn’t connect to Victor. I couldn’t
connect to Siu. You know, as far as I was concerned, I pretty much
died. All I could think about was the fact that I felt Frankie
suffering. I physically felt Frankie suffering. I felt like I could
hear him in my head, in my heart. And I felt like he needed me. I
felt like, I really felt like Frankie was struggling with dying,
like he was kind of lost in between two worlds, two universes.
I kept saying, “I know people think I’m being
selfish, but Frankie’s alone, and Victor’s not. And this is the
toughest decision I’ve had to make. But Victor has two parents
here, and Frankie doesn’t have any. And I’m gonna go with
Frankie.”
How do you learn, how do you learn to live
again? I don’t know how to express it, but after this happened, I
couldn’t do the simplest of things. I struggled going up and down
stairs. I couldn’t walk down the street by myself. I couldn’t take
a bus or a train. I couldn’t go into a store without having a panic
attack, breaking down crying. I mean, it took a lot of really hard
work to get to the place that I’m at right now. And I continue to
find ways to challenge myself to do things that are difficult. Like
I recently went to the zoo with my family, and I saw all these
children playing there. Being in places that have so many fond
memories for me is still really hard.
But working with other survivors on a daily
basis reminds me that, even though I’m in pain, there are other
people who are in just as much pain. What Chicago’s Citizens for
Change allows me to do is keep this tragedy, and my experience of
it, in perspective. I don’t know that I would say it’s been healing
to get the organization up and running, but I would definitely say
that it gives me a source of motivation and strength.
And I think Frankie would be proud that I’ve
become more emotionally vulnerable, so that I can love a bit more
openly those that I’m closest with, especially Victor and Siu. I
mean, definitely there’s still a lot of numbness.
I don’t dance anymore. And I don’t celebrate any holidays. If
something
feels too celebratory, I just can’t do it. But I have had moments
when I
surprise myself.
Not long ago, Victor, Siu and I went to the
ocean, and she and I were standing in the water and a wave came up
from behind us and splashed us. And apparently, I smiled and I
laughed. And Victor took a picture of it. And he said, “Mom and
Siu, I want to show you something.”
So he shows us this picture of both of us
holding on to each other, laughing and smiling and standing in the
ocean. And I was surprised because I didn’t know I had the capacity
to do that anymore.
I just thought I would never, ever smile
again.
—
Interviewed by Miles Harvey
Endnotes
81 In June of 2011, Berly Valladares, a
self-admitted member of the Maniac Latin Disciples, had been
sentenced to 70 years in prison for supplying the gun to
Gatica.
82 His full name is Francisco Valencia
Sr.
83 “Toxemia” is an older term for
preeclampsia, a medical condition
characterized by high blood pressure and excess protein in the
urine of a
pregnant woman.
84 Siu is pronounced like Sue.
85 For the past 15 years, McCormack has
worked as a financial investigator for the federal government.
86 The Lincoln Academy’s Student Laureate
Awards are presented for excellence in curricular and
extracurricular activities to seniors from each of the four-year,
degree-granting colleges and universities in Illinois.
87 The event took place on Oct. 17, 2009.
88 Wrigleyville and Lincoln Square are
affluent neighborhoods on the
North Side.
Final Words: Take a
Risk
My last message. For the … young folks out
there, I challenge you to take a risk. Take a risk in dreaming
about a better world. Take a risk in dreaming about everything
that’s possible for your life. Dream about how to improve it. Dream
about bettering the lives of people around you. Dream about the
need to build a better world. Dream about all the opportunities to
do just that. Sometimes we may not see them, but they’re there.
Maybe we need to ask questions, maybe we need to get pushed—but
they’re there. Take a risk and dream about leading—leading your
families, your friends, your networks, your communities. Lead them
to do good, to be loving and caring people. Lead by example. Don’t
let doubts, fears, pressures, concerns—don’t let that hold you
back. Dream, lead and take action. We need you.
—
Frankie Valencia,
speaking at DePaul University two weeks before
he was murdered
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth
Violenc
e is grounded in “collaborative storytelling,” an
ancient form that is taking on new importance in an age when online
and mobile platforms allow us to capture and share our experiences
on a scale never before possible. Instead of a single narrative by
a lone author, collaborative storytelling involves many voices.