Mother of the Hashtag

It is 6 PM, and the evening news tells a story that sounds all too familiar to you. 17 years old, dead, 3 shots to the back of his head. And then the flash of the cameras turns to dull silence.It has been months, the story has died, but the bullets still sound loudly in his mother's head.

The mother is crying. She doesn't want to step on the Earth that holds her son's dead body, so she chooses instead to kneel before Mother Nature and pray that she will hold her son tightly, like a mother would, like she cannot. 

She can't help but wonder that if she had held onto him a little bit tighter, a little bit longer that she would have been able to hold onto his life. If she knew her child was to die, she would have told him to count the seconds as his hand reaches to pocket, for wallet, for ID, and see how quickly time passes, and she would have told him not to become like the past—cold, lifeless, still. 

She must now hear his name called by the crowd and hear nothing but his deafening silence. Never hear her child's voice calling her name—mother. She holds his body and wonders why no one ever spoke his name until he was dead. 

She never wanted him to become the protest, she just wanted him to be alive.