The violence plaguing Chicago is raging on as a teenage girl was killed on the very same day her sister sat behind President Obama as he spoke about gun violence.
Janay McFarlane was only 18-years-old and the news of Hadiya Pendleton’s death struck her in an eerie way. McFarlane’s mother admitted that her daughter couldn’t stop talking to her about the senseless violence.
“It’s terrible, it’s terrible the only thing I can remember is my daughter telling me, ‘Mommy it’s so sad about Hadiya. That makes no sense,’” McFarlane’s mother said. “She always asked me a lot of questions about death.”
Just days after the 18-year-old mom began trying to figure out why innocent people can die for no reason, she became yet another example of how that very thing happens much too often.
While Destini Warren, McFarlane’s sister, watched Obama in amazement as he spoke on gun violence in the area her sister was on her way to becoming yet another number on the constantly climbing death toll in Chicago.
At 11:30 pm she was pronounced dead due to a single gunshot wound to her head that she received while walking to the store in a Chicago suburb.
“I really feel like somebody cut a part of my heart out,” said Angela Blakely, the girls’ mother.
Janay is leaving behind her 3-month-old son, Jayden, who she dropped out of school to give birth to.
Her youngest sister Destini revealed that she spoke to her sister on Thursday night before she finally fell asleep and told her how excited she was that her sister would get to hear the President speak.
“She was like ‘Just tell me how it’s going to be.’ She was excited for me,” 14-year-old Destini said. “[The violence] was really wracking her because she was talking to my momma about Hadiya.”
The young school girl was just two rows behind Obama when he gave his speech and while she expected to be touched by the President’s message she didn’t expect it to hit so close to home. The tragedy that was at one point just “happening to a lot of people,” was suddenly happening to her as well.
“It was like real painful,” Destini said as she choked back tears.
Her sister was one of two Chicago citizens who have been killed since President Obama delivered his speech on gun violence while six others have been injured.
While the family will not ever have their little girl returned to them, the least a nation can do for a mother who has to bury her child is to promise her that her child’s death won’t be in vain.
