March 10--Two-year-old Dashawn Wright teetered alone on a West Side sidewalk, his wide curious eyes gazing at dozens of kids and adults who came here to mourn his mother's death.
His aunt steadied him, helped him take the cap off a blue marker and held him in front of a poster board taped to a black iron fence.
Dashawn clutched the marker in his right hand and made a few hesitant marks near a photo of his mother, 21-year-old Daysha Wright, displayed at the center.
His aunt, Brianna Harrington, took a step right, still holding the boy up to the fence. Dashawn scribbled a little more, his movements a little more sure.
"That's enough," she said. "You don't want to draw on her face."
She took a step right. Dashawn scribbled a little more.
Behind him, relatives had spelled his mother's name in tea lights on the sidewalk a few feet from where she was shot to death the night before. Her death left Dashawn an orphan. His father died in a car accident some time ago, according to family members.
The candle flames flickered in the dark and cast a soft glow onto teddy bears leaning against the iron fence. The night was warm for early March. Children's shoes slapped on sidewalks as they played under yellow lights and a darkening sky.
Dozens gathered next to a parking lot and red brick townhouses at Maypole and Hoyne avenues to remember Wright.
As the night darkened, Tamara Chapman, a cousin, passed out candles to those who gathered on the sidewalk facing the posters. They lit them by 6 p.m.
Chapman had been trying to gather the crowd. She raised her voice: "Would you all please be quiet?"
They complied. She read, from her phone, verses from St. Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from, heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead, in Christ, shall rise first. Then we, which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the Lord clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: And so shall we, forever be with the Lord."
She prayed for understanding and for comfort.
Wright had graduated from Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School and was pursuing nursing when she was killed on this spot early Wednesday, a few minutes after midnight.
"She didn't even see the prime of life," said her great-aunt Henrietta Chapman, 59, shaking her head. "I still can't believe it. It feels like a dream."
The dark blue Buick where she was shot sat nearby, its gray leather front passenger seat smeared rust red with dried blood. Bullets had punctured the metal body, the interior, the leather seats. Wright died at Stroger Hospital.
Wright and her sisters were close. Sometimes they wore matching outfits, and Wright would often lend an ear if a sister needed it.
"She was a fun girl, happy, cheerful, turnt up, beautiful, smart and intelligent," her 19-year-old sister Adriana Harrington said. "She wanted to go outside and be in the beautiful weather."
Harrington said she was trying to be strong for her family, but was having a hard time. "I don't know if I can be strong anymore," she said. "I lost someone that I'm very close to. She was a really good person and sister to me."
A few other relatives spoke after Tamara Chapman, before the crowd spread out and people began to leave. Some mourners lifted their hands to shield the glare from streetlights and peered through the windows into the car.
Hillard Coleman, 47, watched from his deck across the street as the crowd thinned. "When I was younger, we had no guns," he said.
He scowled, "Now this female got shot. People need to respect people."
Tamara Chapman encouraged people to donate money to the family, and mourners pulled crinkled bills from pockets and handed them to Chapman.
Wax from tea lights spilled and cooled on the sidewalk. A boy dribbled a basketball nearby. Adults rounded up children into vans and cars. Families left one or two at a time, no one really sure whether to stay or go.
