Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Daniel Harris with her son, Amir, who was born two months after Ms. Harris’s mother was killed at their home in Queens.
“We both ran downstairs yelling, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,’ ” Ms. Harris said.
The sisters were met with the grisly sight of a man attacking their mother, Elizabeth, with the claw of a hammer. The attacker, they said, was their mother’s former boyfriend.
Next the assailant turned on the girls. He struck Ms. Harris with the hammer, lacerating her left shoulder, and stabbed her sister in the arms and head with the knife she had grabbed to defend herself. Then he fled the home. The police later arrested the former boyfriend, Charlie Mitchell. He is awaiting trial on numerous charges, including second-degree murder.
“I was in shock,” Ms. Harris said of the immediate aftermath. “I was hugging my mother. My child was kicking because I was upset. I didn’t know what to do.”
Ms. Harris’s mother was taken to nearby Peninsula General Hospital in Far Rockaway, Queens, where she later died.
Within days of the horrific attack, in October 2011, Ms. Harris and two of her sisters were taken in by their cousin, and moved to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. In December of that year, Ms. Harris gave birth to a son, Amir Warren, who forced her to trade despondence for determination.
“I thought after my mother passed away, that I wasn’t going to be able to deal with it,” she said. “But once my son was born, everything changed. He motivated me to deal with my issues, because now I have someone to depend on me. I had to be strong for the both of us.”
Amir’s birth was not the first time in his short existence that he had altered his mother’s course. Ms. Harris explained that she had begun walking down a bad path soon after entering high school; she had a better attendance record at “hooky parties,” where smoking and drinking were common activities, than she did in class. Near the end of her sophomore year, Ms. Harris learned she was pregnant.
“It was kind of a wake-up call,” she said. “I needed to get my life on track immediately.”
But her family’s tragedy undermined those newfound ambitions. Shortly after her move to Brooklyn, Ms. Harris had to drop out of high school. Her sisters went to live with other caregivers. Attempts to apply for public assistance were met with roadblocks.
In September 2012, Ms. Harris found her way to Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, a beneficiary agency of the Community Service Society, one of the seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Its mission is to serve at-risk, out-of-school and unemployed youths. Ms. Harris would soon enroll in G.E.D. classes, and with the help of the agency, she has started receiving public assistance.
In order to allow Ms. Harris to successfully complete her courses, Amir would need a full-time caregiver. She said she and Amir’s father are not a couple, and though he offers help as often as he can, he does not fulfill that role. Her part-time job at a KFC restaurant did not pay enough for her to afford child care, so the Community Service Society secured a grant of $900 from the Neediest Cases fund, allowing Ms. Harris to cover the cost of child care until her public assistance application was approved.
Last November, she earned her high school equivalency diploma, and since March she has worked as an administrative assistant for William Hird & Company, a fire extinguisher maintenance service, where she earns $10 per hour. Ms. Harris said that in January she would begin taking classes at Medgar Evers College, while also continuing her employment.
Ms. Harris’s resolve is perhaps best expressed in ink: Her mother’s name, tattooed on her left shoulder, obscures the faded scar her skin has worn since the attack.
“I’m trying to set an example for everyone that even though this bad thing happened to me, I want what’s best for my son and my life,” Ms. Harris said.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
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