‘Mother suffers anguish of losing a second son’

One of my first stories to put some new Poynter learning into action: Does the story feel bigger than the news?

With this family, yes. Of course it does.

Antoinette Brandon knew the deal. She had been through it before.

The call comes, always late at night.

You rush to the hospital. So do family and friends. And there, you learn that your son has been killed.

First, it was 21-year-old Danzel Brandon, her eldest. His drunk friend drove them into a tree in December 2005 in Markham.

On Friday, it was 19-year-old Marcus Long, her youngest. A rival he was fistfighting pulled a gun on him in Hazel Crest late Thursday night and blasted him in the head at Elm Drive and Hazel Lane, his family said. Police found him a little before midnight.

Marcus died from his gunshot wound at 2:49 a.m. Friday at South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide. As of Saturday, police had not arrested anyone.

Soon, Brandon will deal with the hospital and all the arrangements that must be made. With her remaining daughter, Stephanie Long, she will worry about an obituary.

Maybe today or Monday, she’ll talk with Hazel Crest police, her daughter said. That depends on whether she’s emotionally ready.

But Friday, still in shock, Brandon opened her doors to friends and family. She needed her community around her. She tucked her hair into a black hat and put on her “Peace in the streets” shirt. The 50-year-old welcomed dozens of folks to the grassy back yard, pulled
up chairs on the patio, offered cold drinks.

Behind the slab ranch house her children called home, she told stories about her younger son, the one whose wide brown eyes mirror her own.

“I was looking forward to growing old with my sons,” she said. “I had kids because I wanted them.”

South Suburban is where Long was born, on New Year’s Day of 1991. He was the hospital’s first baby of the year. He was in the newspaper then, too.

Brandon moved her family to Country Club Hills for a quieter upbringing. She raised her kids Christian at All Nations Community Church in Homewood.

Her youngest son got into some trouble. He spent 10 months in Cook County Jail. She tried to keep him away from a bad crowd. She sent him to Lincoln’s Challenge Academy, an alternative school for at-risk students, and encouraged him to apply to South Suburban College after
he finished in 2008. He was good with his hands, she said. And he was good to his mother.

Antoinette Brandon has barely begun to grieve again. Yet she also is thinking of another mother. She can do that already, while her son’s body still lies in the hospital.

“I feel sorry for that boy’s mom that’s responsible. She has to live with it, too.”

After all, she forgave her elder son’s killer. God helped her with that. And there’s no sense in hating.

“I believe in a clean heart,” she said. “It’s how I got my blessings and my strength.”

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Published Aug. 7 in the SouthtownStar, page 5.

Page 2010-08 Mother suffers anguish || SouthtownStar

And in the Chicago Sun-Times 2010-08 Shooting victim’s brother killed in 2005 auto crash || CHICAGO SUN-TIMES