My daughter and I are gun violence survivors.
She was just one year old when we were driving home from work and daycare one night. We were singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” She was sitting just behind me in her car seat. An enraged driver was looking for a target for his anger and found us. I tried to drive away from him, but he followed us, pulled beside our car, and shot at us several times.
After the shots stopped and the driver sped off, I realized my daughter wasn’t singing anymore. I couldn’t hear her at all. I screamed her name. No answer. I screamed again. Silence. I screamed a third time, as loud as I could. I heard her giggle.
I relive those moments often, remembering what it felt like to think my daughter was dead, and I think of the mothers who never heard that giggle.