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#10YearsLater #UnflinchingProgress: Mike Brown Sr. & Cal Brown

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

Cal: “We met in junior high. I was an errand girl and I’d run into his classroom every day to deliver a message. He’d always try to get my attention, but I had work to do. I was focused. So one day in the hallway, he said, ‘Hey!’ I turned around, we talked, and exchanged numbers. We dated for a little over a year and the next year we went to high school. We got kind of disconnected but were in touch once or twice. Then we reconnected more than 20 years later. I had just given birth to my sixth child and he commented on my sister’s Facebook post, ‘Congratulations, Cal.’ Eventually, I accepted his friend request.”

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒?

Mike: “Rally’s.”

Cal: “No, that was not the date! His suggestion was Rally’s and a movie. And I said, ‘No.’” 

Mike: “Oh, the first real date? It was a picnic in Forest Park by a waterfall. I ain’t never did anything like that before. She suggested it and I went with it.”

Cal: “You remembered.”

Mike: “Yeah.”

Cal: “So I pulled a blanket and picnic basket out and had all the fixings. He was like, ‘How did you learn to do this?’ And I was like, ‘You never been on a picnic before?’ He said, ‘Never.’ I told him, ‘This the type of stuff I like to do.’”

𝑀𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛?

Mike: “I remembered who cared about me. When we were young, I thought I wanted to play a little bit and that’s why we broke up. I didn’t know what I wanted. So it started off with an apology. I wanted her to forgive me. In between all that, a lot happened with both of us. So I just wanted to apologize so she understood I really meant it.”

Cal: “We weren’t supposed to be dating. That happened too fast. The goal was to just hang out and be friends. But, Mr. Brown had other plans.”

Mike: “I wasn’t gonna let her get away this time.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

Cal: “We got married on July 16th, 2014. Three weeks before the day Mike Brown Jr. was killed. He was his dad’s best man.”

Mike: “And before that, what happened?”

Cal: “We lost our house in a fire on June 9th.” 

Mike: “So our 2014 was crazy. 2013 and 2014.”

Cal: “We didn’t have any money but knew we wanted to get married. Something small and simple. We were only supposed to invite 10 people a piece, but Mr. Brown invited the whole community. Our entire family was there. We got married at a pavilion in Koeneman Park in Jennings. We ate with everybody in the park and then went home with all our children. We couldn’t afford a honeymoon and haven’t had one to this day.”

𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑀𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐽𝑟. 𝑏𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒?

Mike: “To be honest, somebody forgot the ring and Mike was real upset about it. He told me, ‘Dad, I ain’t got the ring.’ I said, ‘Aww, damn. WHERE THE RING AT?’”

Cal: “But they played it real cool. My uncle slid his ring off his finger and handed it to Mike. Nobody even knew. But what I remember about Mike is that he did a whole lot of smiling that day from ear to ear.”

Mike: “Yeah, he was happy to see me happy. It did something to him. It was a nice day. A real nice day for us before all the madness happened. That day lasted til 1 a.m. because we left the park late, hung out at my cousin’s house, and dropped Mike off at his Granny Maxine’s in Pinelawn since we were living in a hotel because of our house fire. The following week, he graduated on August 1st and went to his Gun Gun’s to hang out before starting school on August 11th at Vatterott. I saw him every day until he got murdered.”

Photos Courtesy of Mike & Cal Brown.

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑢𝑠𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑝 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛. 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢?

Cal: “My favorite picture of Mike is a closeup of him in a red and black hoodie and he’s blowing smoke out of his mouth. But it’s not like he’s smoking a cigarette. It’s something he does where he blows moist air out, like making a cloud in his mouth. And his light brown eyes are just so captivating.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

Cal: “August 1st was the day Mike graduated from summer school. Me, his dad, and all seven of our children took him out to lunch. For some reason, Mike wanted to go to this Chinese restaurant in Ferguson. We all sat down and he just began talking about different things. But the thing that stood out to me was when he said, ‘One day the world is gonna know my name. I’m going to shake the world.’ He said, ‘I may have to go away for a while, but I’m coming back to heal my city. I’m gonna be bigger than Biggie, Lil Wayne, Tupac.’ And we were all laughin’ at him, like, ‘Boy, you silly.’ Cause he was a prankster. He was always sayin’ stuff. But that one really stuck with me.”

Mike: “He was a rapper, too, so that’s why he said he was gonna be bigger than all of them.”

Cal: “Yep. So then on August 3rd, I was admitted to the hospital. Mike Mike’s phone was broken, so he called the hospital, and his dad was in my room to pick up. Mike Mike said, ‘Hey, old dude, how you doing?’ He was like, ‘I’m good. What’s up with you?’ He said, ‘Nothing, just hanging out over here in my Granny’s house and with my friends. Where Cal at?’ He was like, ‘She’s been out for testing all day. I’m waiting for her to come back in the room.’ And he said, ‘Daddy, I got something to tell you. I don’t think Cal gonna make it.’ And my husband was like, ‘Why would you say that?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ And when I came back in the room, he said, ‘Your son made me mad.’ I was like, ‘What did Mike Mike do?’ He was like, ‘He told me that he didn’t think you were gonna make it.’ But I was like, ‘What else did he say? Usually, when he says something, there’s a reason.’”

A few days went by and I was about to be discharged. Mike Mike called the hospital room again and was like, ‘Hey, old lady, how you doin’? I’ve been calling you. Where you been?’ I said, ‘Dealing with all this testing and stuff.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you know my old dude mad at me.’ I asked, ‘Mad at you for what?’ He knew I already knew, but he said, ‘Cause I told him I didn’t think you was gonna make it.’ I asked him, ‘Well, why you say that?’ And he said, ‘Cause I’ve been dreaming of death. I’ve been seeing bloody sheets on the clothesline. And all I could do was associate it with you and what was going on.’ Two days later, I walked down Canfield and he we was lying down under a bloody sheet.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

 “Rewind to January 12th, 2013, I had been diagnosed with chronic heart failure. I was taking Mike to work and he asked me, ‘Should I go? You don’t look too good.’ I said, ‘We got six kids and number seven on the way. You gotta go to work.’ So I dropped him off and went to pick up my mom who was at my uncle’s house. She wasn’t ready though and asked me to come back in an hour. So I went home a few miles away and left my phone in the car. I was short of breath and struggled to get up 13 steps. When I finally got up the steps, I collapsed on the floor. And when I turned around to kick the door closed, my mother was standing there: ‘What are you doing? I’ve been calling you for an hour and you haven’t been answering. I knew something was wrong.’ She said, ‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?’ When you gotta get six kids dressed and you’re pregnant, you don’t have time to look in the mirror.

She was like, ‘You need to go to the hospital.’ I said, ‘Mama, I don’t have time.’ My daughter was on the couch asleep with the flu. A washer and dryer was being delivered. I had two weeks of dirty clothes for eight people. I needed to cook dinner and also go to work. With tears in her eyes, she said, ‘You can’t do none of that dead.’ Even then, it didn’t click in my mind. When you’re a mother with that many children, you’re like a robot: ‘I got to do this, I got to do that.’ She allowed the people to deliver the appliances and for me to prep dinner. Then she came downstairs, grabbed my arm, and said, ‘Stop. You have to go to the hospital.’ Reluctantly, I pouted, grabbed my purse, and I went.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

“I was 24 weeks pregnant. The doctor came in and asked, ‘What brought you in?’ And I sarcastically said, ‘My mother.’ He said, ‘Well, let’s check your lungs. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath.’ I said, ‘I did.’ He said, ‘Take another deep breath.’ I said, ‘I did.’ He asked who my OB was, looked at my mom, went out the room, and came right back. He said, ‘Get your things. We’re going on a trip. Well, you’re going on a trip — on a helicopter to deliver this baby today.’ I said, ‘Who’s doing what?’ So they put me in a helicopter with three nurses and a doctor. All these people were talkin’ to me and all I heard was that I was finna have a baby that day at six months pregnant, with six kids at home, and we didn’t even have a pack of diapers.

They prepped me and told me the things they were going to do. I heard, but I didn’t hear. They gave me injections. We landed on the roof of Barnes-Jewish. And they said, ‘We’re prepping you for emergency surgery.’ Stubbornly, I said, ‘No you’re not. I’m going to deliver her naturally like I did all my other children. If she or I become unresponsive, that’s when you can do it.’ So they induced me. And that’s when I finally had time to call Michael. I was like, ‘Hey, how’s your day going?’ He was like, ‘I’m good. How you doin’? How’s work?’ I was like, ‘Well, I haven’t made it to work. Probably not going to work. According to these people at the hospital, we’re having a baby today.’ He was freakin’ out like, ‘What? What’s wrong?!’ I said, ‘Just finish your day at work and come to the hospital.’ He didn’t listen and came straight to the hospital. I told him what all went on and he said, ‘You didn’t look good this morning, but I didn’t think we were gonna have a baby.’ At that point, we knew nothing. We just knew the goal was to get this baby out.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

“I was in labor for 14 hours, delivered our daughter, and felt absolutely amazing. I had spent months not being able to breathe, thinking I had adult asthma. Then, all of a sudden, we were sittin’ on the side of the hospital bed having lunch when I went into cardiac arrest. And at 2:43 p.m. the doctors came in and gave us the worst news of my life: that I had cardiomyopathy, heart failure, that my heart was functioning at less than 25%, and that I’d never be able to work again. I was in the hospital for two months. Our daughter was 1 pound, 13 ounces. She could fit in one hand. Now she’s 11 and she ain’t never missed a beat. I wanted to name her Miracle because they said if I wouldn’t have been pregnant, my heart would have stopped and I wouldn’t have been able to be revived. She kept me alive.”

𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑤𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑔𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑤𝑒’𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑒𝑡.

Cal: “We keep on hearing that. We got a helluva story.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑤𝑠?

Cal: “Go for it, Mr. Brown.”

Mike: “I had gotten off work early. I used to transport people to their dialysis and doctor appointments and hadn’t had that many routes that day. So I went to her mom’s house, where my wife was folding clothes and I helped her. Then my mother called saying, ‘I’m having a bad feelin’. I need you to go and see where Mike is.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna call him in a minute.’ I got back to folding clothes and dozed off. Then Mike’s other grandmother, Leslie’s mother, called saying, ‘Mike’s laying in the middle of the street. Police shot and killed him.’

I turned to Cal, my wife, and said, ‘So the police just killed my son.’ And I can’t tell you how we got in the car. I can’t even tell you when. I just remember the ride there and it was like a roller coaster. When we got there, I stuck my foot out the car and Mike’s mother was running past me saying, ‘Is this true, Mike?’ I was like, ‘I only know what you know. I ran behind her and that’s when we saw people everywhere.

The hat on the ground was the STL hat he wore when my wife and I got married just a few weeks before. As my best man, Mike and I had the same hats on, the same flip-flops, the same Chuck Taylors, the same suits. So the hat stood out to me. What kept me from not really believing it though was that my son was covered up. The world had seen him uncovered. I didn’t see what the world had seen. I saw him with a sheet over him. That played really good on my brain. Like, ‘Maybe that’s not him…’ Then when the sheet blew up some, I was able to see his socks. And I was like, ‘Fuck. Those are his socks.’”

The public, the community, the people were like, ‘Are you Big Mike? Mike Mike wasn’t doin’ nothin’.’ It started to kind of set in. And then the disrespect from the police. I remember my 18-month-old baby had a dog barkin’ in her face. Someone shot a gun on the outskirts, which agitated the police and make them take longer with the investigation or even getting Mike off the ground. So it was about to get bad. 

We were having conversations with these police officers — I even went to school with two of them — and they acted like they didn’t even care. Yeah, that day was hell.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝐿𝑒𝑡’𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑠 𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 10 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠. 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝐶ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡?

Mike: “The thing is we were out here doing interviews. Had to be here, had to be there. So we had people running our foundation and sadly they didn’t run it the way it needed to be run. We got it back, all intact. But a lot of the givebacks and stuff we were doing, we were doing that cause that’s the type of people we are. That didn’t have anything to do with the foundation. That community stood up for Mike. Why not go over there and pay some bills and feed people? We didn’t want this blood money anyway. That’s what I was thinking, until people who didn’t know Mike were eatin’ off his death. Then I felt like, ‘They gonna eat, I’m gonna eat. That’s my name.’ It was hard to see it that way because some people were just devils.”

Cal: “Vultures.”

Mike: “How do you build foundations and make hashtags off of certain names when you don’t even know a person? And you’re okay with that? It was sick.”

Cal: “Even then, we didn’t know how it all worked. We’d raise money and go right back out to the community to give it to them. The people in Canfield had a curfew. There was a certain time they could go out and had to come in and that affected a lot of their jobs. Some lost their jobs, so we’d help them pay rent and utilities and bring food. We gave school supplies away. We had already gone through so much that year and then Mike was the icing on the cake. The only thing we could do is try to be good to others.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

Cal: “My husband spent a lot of time just angry. I didn’t know what that anger would transition to, so I always wanted to try to keep him in a certain space to make him feel good. Doing things for other people seemed to put a smile on his face. That year, we partnered with the Demetrious Johnson Foundation and gave out well over 350 turkeys and fixings. One young man who wanted to thank him, said, ‘Although I appreciate this for Thanksgiving, my family’s about to eat this tonight. Because we don’t have anything else. I lost my job during the uprising. We’re just trying to figure it out. We’re days from being evicted.’ It was people like that we wanted to show up for. Then folks started saying, ‘You all should start an organization.’ We were like, ‘We don’t know what that looks like.’ They were all in our ear and it was like, ‘Give us a second. We’ll eventually figure it out.’

A gentleman I knew all my life, a childhood friend of my mom, brought a posterboard to the house. It was by a nine-year-old who had gotten ahold of Mike’s obituary. He duplicated all the photos to put on the poster board and at the top, it said ‘Chosen for Change.’ When we read it, it gave us chills. We looked at each other unprompted and were like, ‘That’s it. That’s gonna be the name of our organization when we decide to start one.’ 

The money that churches and people were raising for us, we had been shifting it right back into the community. And when you think about it, we still didn’t have a house. People were like, ‘Y’all still stayin’ at hotels?’ By that time it had become the norm. Because of everything we were going through and people recognizing us, we moved from hotel to hotel. Once people saw my husband’s face, they knew who he was, so we’d shift to another hotel. We didn’t have time to sit still to even put together the itemized list the insurance company wanted. So one day, my mom said, ‘You gotta sit down and make the list so y’all can get the money you need.’ But, it was the furthest thing on our minds. Finally, when we did do it, we got the money to move into a house in late October 2014.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛?

“Four or five years ago, we were tryin’ to rebrand. A lot of paperwork and stuff got mixed up with the last people leading the Michael Brown Foundation when it got started. So we had to launch a new organization. We had to go with another name because the person that was overseeing that didn’t pay attention to mail, things got behind, we couldn’t find them… The new foundation is built off of grieving fathers. I had no choice but to be a part of it. People would come to Cal and I, wondering, ‘But what about the mothers?’ She battled with it. I battled with it too. ‘What about ’em? There are so many programs for mothers. Ain’t one like this for fathers though.’ Still, we wanted to build something for the mothers who didn’t get a national platform. This now gives them that so people can understand what happened to their children and who they are. There’s a lot of stuff. I don’t even know where to start and end. But, we built Mothers of Angels for the mothers. We have S.W.A.T, Sisters With a Task, started by Mike’s sisters when they were 17 and 18. We took them to the Essence Festival where they were able to launch and do what they needed to do to start that arm of the organization. We got COPES, Children Overcoming Painful Experiences with Support. And we got a literacy program where I can just go into schools and read with the kids.

People ask me, ‘How do you get your healing?’ I tell ’em, ‘I get it through my work.’ And every August 9th, I want Darren Wilson to see that he didn’t break my family. That’s my biggest thing. When someone turns on the TV and sees my family, I want ’em to see our strength on that screen. And that we didn’t just let Mike’s death be something of the past. The family’s actually doing something with Mike’s legacy.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝑌’𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑑𝑒. 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢?

Cal: “People who have dealt with grief, loss, and trauma, are a different breed. Especially if they don’t take the time to really deal with it. We’ve met some amazing people and families, but it’s a hard job. People see us and are like, ‘Oh my god, you’re doing all of this!’ But they don’t really know what the backstory looks like. I created Cookies N Convos with Mothers of an Angel. It started off with grieving women coming together expressing what they go through in their different stages of grief, and us providing tools to cope so they can reinvent themselves after their loss. I would plan what that day would look like and I’d be excited, and the minute I’d go in the room, their energy would jump all over me. I couldn’t do it. One of the things that they gave me was their desire and strength to get up in the morning. I just imagine how I would be if I lost one of my biological children. You’d probably have to come scoop me off the sidewalk. But these women get up every day and try to make it another day.

It’s so impactful to be in these types of spaces. It’s not always the easiest and there’s not always a lot of laughter, but it’s real. It’s what people are going through. And we’re thankful we can create those types of spaces because ours are different than most grief support groups. It’s peer-led. There’s hardly ever an agenda. We might show up thinking we’re gonna do some arts and crafts, but arts and crafts stay in the back when suddenly we might be engulfed in a person and their immediate needs. We’ve pretty much become a family. In the St. Louis area, so many people are dealing with grief, loss, and trauma. We’ve served more than 1,700 families in 10 years. There is not enough support here to handle the amount that we need.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐶ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒, 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝 𝑏𝑦?

Mike: “Ain’t nobody at our house.”

Cal: “Mmm-hmm. We don’t do that. Home is home. We learned that in the beginning. Because people were coming to our house in droves. Like, from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. And when they’d eventually dwindle away, we were ecstatic. Because nothing was normal during that time. We didn’t have any time to ourselves. There were people everywhere and it was so annoying. We’d look at each other like, ‘When the hell are they gonna go home?’”

Mike: “And we’re not in the same spot anymore, so nobody really knows where we at. Soon as we got some money, I bought a house. I didn’t rent it. I didn’t get no note. I was like, ‘Here’s a check. It’s ours.’”

Cal: “Now with just the kids and us, it’s still busy. There’s never a dull moment. We have grandbabies running through the house, too. It’s funny though because when the kids leave to go somewhere, I’ll be like, ‘You hear that?’ He’ll say, ‘Hear what?’ I’ll be like, ‘Nothing.’ And he’ll say, ‘I know! I kinda miss ’em.’ You know what? I’m enjoying that little moment and he over here talkin’ about he misses the kids.”

Mike: “Yeah, it’s too quiet.”

Cal: “Yeah, it’s alive all the time. And that’s our safe space.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠?

Cal: “We stopped watching the news. That’s the first thing.”

Mike: “And anytime I need a break, I’m like, ‘Babe, I’m outta here,’ and she’s like, ‘Go. Go.’”

Cal: “He likes to take a drive.”

Mike: “Or we’ll go out of town and get a break. Sometimes we got to do that solo. We’re okay with that. There’s no pause in our house. It’s always on a green light.”

𝐼𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦𝑚𝑜𝑜𝑛 𝑛𝑜𝑤, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒?

Mike: “I don’t know. We’ve been everywhere.” 

Cal: “We’ve been to Australia, Switzerland, Iran. We went to a lot of different places around the world, but always for work.”

Mike: “And the thing about it is, there’s no such thing as us going anywhere and just relaxing. There ain’t no time for us to just sit still. This is our life now. Sadly, it’s kind of taken over our life. Because we had to focus so much on what was goin’ on, we had to learn to go back to romance and lovin’ each other. We had put our relationship to the side.”

Cal: “Our marriage became like a business.”

Mike: “It just became all work. Like, ‘Where are we having fun at? What the hell’s goin’ on? Hold on. Let’s go to the movies or something.’”

Cal: “We had to have that conversation. It wasn’t like we didn’t love each other. We were so focused. We’d wake up every morning with each other. We’d go to bed every night with each other. But we’d sit in the bed with the laptop doin’ work together instead of fun, romantic stuff. There was always something to be done. Like a month before this 10-year commemoration of the worst day of our lives, all I was doing every day was sending emails, answering emails, talking to caterers, and our anniversary was gonna come up and we had nothing planned. So one day, the lightbulb came on. We were like, ‘What are we doin’?’ So we strategically made time for it. He’d put the laptop aside and be like, ‘Let’s cuddle.’ ‘Oh, okay!’”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝐻𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑢𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚?

Mike: “They’ve helped me heal. It’s definitely a journey. Daunte Wright’s father, Aubrey. We just had an anniversary for Philando Castile. I have conversations with his mom on the regular about how she feels. I talk to Eric Garner’s wife, Esaw. So, I keep in contact with all these families and they give me breath. We share something similar. I can bounce off them and on how their emotions are moving. And they tell me, ‘You being here with us, tryin’ to give us power and give us strength, reminds us we are new people. We are not the same people as before the loss of our loved ones.’ I tell ’em, ‘I’m 10 years old. I had to learn how to walk, talk, and everything like a kid.’

This journey has been tremendous for a lot of us. And we need to learn how to reinvent ourselves. There are a lot of them who don’t want to be a part of nothin.’ They just want to work. And there are a lot of them who want to be a part of something. They want to do the work. And then a lot of them just don’t know what to do. Being around me, I try to show them strength and what’s next. But I don’t put pressure on none of the families that don’t want to be involved. I get it. I feel like if I didn’t have a support team, I probably wouldn’t have been involved this far. I was a person of few words, strictly from the streets. I didn’t have to talk to nobody. It’s all about doin.’ So takin’ this road was my biggest challenge. My BIGGEST challenge of my LIFE.

The disrespect that happened to my family, you know, the streets don’t play that. And it was the challenge that was best for my family. To do it in a different way and still be able to hold his and our name up where it needs to be and people can still respect him. People tell me, ‘Mike, we know there are different ways you coulda went, man, but we really appreciate you doin’ it this way. You taught me something. If this was to happen to me, I’d know what to do next.’ Through the pain is always a teaching.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

“I just put it out there, clear as day: ‘I’m a 10-year-old now.’ People like me have to learn all over again because we are not the same as we were before. It’s a whole new ballgame. You’re much stronger now than you were, but it’s like, how do you put all your information back in? That data’s gotta go in a different type of way. You can’t understand things the way you did in Ferguson. You hear everything differently. You see everything differently.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

“We created a blueprint for what grieving families should do. But one of the things I pay attention to is that most of these grieving families rely on their new family, which is all of the other grieving families. Because if their own family doesn’t really know how to deal with and tolerate you, and your conversation from this new reality is foreign to them, they eventually drift away. If I sit with you and talk to you about losing my son, you absolutely don’t know how that feels. You don’t know what to say, what not to say. One of the biggest things we talk about is what do you say and what do you not say to a grieving person. You have to be strategic about your words. You can’t be like, ‘Hey! How you doin’?’ ‘How you think I’m doin’? My kid’s dead.’ And that might not be our response, but that’s what we’re thinking. Instead, try, ‘Hey, how things goin’? Is there anything I can do for you?’ Even me, I have to be strategic about how I talk to my husband. I was guilty in the beginning of saying things and I didn’t realize I was sayin’ them in that way. I’ve always tried to encourage him despite everything to move forward. And he took it as me saying, ‘Get over it.’ We had to have that conversation. And I had to clarify, ‘No, I’m sayin’ you gotta learn how to live everyday life with the loss of your son.’”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤?

Mike: “The first question they ask is how am I doin’. It’s still the stupidest question. And then, ‘How is your family doin’?’ Stupidest question ever. ‘What happened on August 9th?’ Stupidest question ever. I used to be pissed hearing that. But I learned. Some people don’t know no better. They just ask. Just like the people on the street, their hearts are full of love, but they don’t know how to share it. So I had to learn to understand that some people don’t mean no harm. They just don’t know no better. Those questions still eat at me. I just respond differently. Still, it’s always like, ‘Ugh.’”

Cal: “Some media outlets ask the SAME questions every year. I’ll be like, ‘Can I see the list of questions? Yeah, we’re not answering that. Or that either.’ ‘But that’s all our questions.’ ‘Well, ask us about the work. Who we were. Who we are now. The change we wish to see. The bad has already happened. Why do we have to keep takin’ about it all the time? Google his name and find out what happened.’ It’s triggering, it’s traumatizing, and in ways it’s disrespectful.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis

𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠𝑎𝑦, ‘𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 10 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠? 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙?’ 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛?

Cal: “A lot has changed, but not enough. Especially when every day somebody’s kid is still being killed. Children are continuously being incarcerated in massive amounts. So what really has changed? Little things that have changed have not been enough to stop the problems.”

Mike: “There are just some things that are deep down in the tissue of the system. It’s so far down that we’ll be dead and gone before it gets fixed.”

Cal: “I was born and raised here. My own city is hurting. My own city is in need. So if I’m gonna hit the ground running, I’m gonna do it here. People are always like, ‘Y’all should just pack up and leave.’ That would be good, but what about here? Our entire family is here. And just picking up and going somewhere else versus making myself available and giving my gifts to other people makes me feel some type of way.”

Mike: “A week ago, my mom just told us, ‘Don’t stay here for me. I’m over 80 years old, but I’m gonna be alright.’”

Cal: “She said, ‘Go live your life. Travel the world.’ But both our mothers are our elders. And if they call, we comin.’ And if we’re halfway across the world, that’s quite expensive with all of the kids.”