by Miles Harvey
Chico came from Acapulco, Mexico. A bunch of the family had migrated here, and so he had this beautiful network of people who spent time together and raised kids together and ate meals together and did all of these things that were just not part of reality in my own dysfunctional childhood. And I fell in love with that. I wanted it. I think that was one of the driving forces behind us getting together.
I was 15 when I found out that I was pregnant with Frankie. I was a freshman at Lincoln Park High School, in their International Baccalaureate program. I was having some irregular periods and my best friend was saying to me, “Joy, I think you’re pregnant.” And I was like, “No, I don’t think I’m pregnant.” There was really a part of me that kind of knew that I was, but I didn’t want to deal with it because I knew that my mom would really
be upset.
Although she was a great friend, my mother was never a great mom. Being a parent was always secondary to the other parts of her life. So when I told her the news, her reaction was like, “I’m 32; I can’t be a grandmother.” She really wanted me to have an abortion. She tried convincing me; she tried bribing me. But I decided I was going to have that baby.
I used to read Goodnight Moon to Frankie at night when I was pregnant: “Good night moon, good night stars ...” And at the time, there was this theory about how classical music would develop the child’s brain. So I would put on the classical music station. Sometimes I would even put the headphones on my belly and hope that he was getting it, you know?
I had complications in the pregnancy, and there were a couple of times when it wasn’t clear that everything would be okay. He was 3 ½ weeks late, and I was very sick with toxemia83 by the time he was born. I was in labor for 2 ½ days. It was such an emotional experience, because I had been going through it for so long and the whole pregnancy had had all this turmoil. And then it all just kind of went away because there’s this beautiful thing that I was holding.
He was 8 pounds 12 ounces when he was born at Illinois Masonic. He was a big boy. And he had very dark hair, and he had very red skin. And some of his hair was standing up. And he was very angry. He came into this world very angry.
I was 19 at the time my second son, Victor, was born. As an only child myself, I wanted Frankie to have a sibling. I didn’t want him to be alone in the world.
But by then, my relationship with Chico was not healthy. He is a great person with a good heart; we are still great friends. But he never learned how to be a husband. So I chose to leave when Victor was a baby. My husband had closed the door on our commitment by the choices he was making. And once he did that, I felt like, “Okay, I owe nothing to this relationship anymore. I gave it my best; it didn’t work out.” And so very quickly after I left, I allowed myself to be true to me and began dating women.
I think I had known that I was gay for a very long time, but I rebelled against it. I didn’t want it to be true, because of the stigma that went with it. And there were not examples around me of gay parents, so it was challenging to see myself both as a parent and as a gay woman. But when Victor was about 3 years old, I met my life partner, Siu.84 And six months after we started dating, I had a conversation with the boys about whether or not they thought it would be okay if Siu joined our family, and they both said yes. By then I had graduated college and was building a career.85
We don’t fit in to what most people’s families look like. We don’t even look like each other. I am Irish, Scottish, English and Russian-Jew. The boys are of Mexican and African heritage, because their father’s grandfather is part African. And Siu, her parents were originally from China, and they migrated here.
Early on, we recognized that and we wanted to have something that would allow us to feel like we were connected, so we came up with this family acronym of the MMV family, which is the McCormack-Moy-Valencia family. It was a way to feel like we were a team. On a family trip, we once found T-shirts, which for some weird reason said, “MMV, a team that can’t be beat!” That’s how we felt—together, we were invincible.
It was a very open, very honest, very down-to-earth, very caring home environment. We ate dinners together most nights of the week. We always had a family day, which was our day not to do work and our day to play together and go do things and hang out. We made a big deal about all the special stuff in life, the holidays and special occasions and milestones. We just had an incredible energy. People were like, “Wow, this is amazing.” And it was amazing.
I mean, it’s destroyed now. But it was really amazing while it lasted.
Frankie was a fireball when he was little. And I had to be very intentional about parenting him, with behavior modification and all kinds of things to give him channels for that energy.
He really loved learning and he loved information and he loved facts. He was just so analytical and inquisitive and ready to challenge things at such a young age. And people were really attracted to his energy. People wanted to be around him. He was a leader at school. He just had that confidence.
My goal was to stop the cycles of dysfunction and chaos I grew up with and to be the first person in the family to raise a child who could actually have a childhood. And I felt like I did that. He had a great childhood, other than going through the divorce. But that was hard for Frankie. He really wished that his father and I had stayed together. It was really hard for him to give that up.
Frankie loved playing basketball and football, so he was hanging out with a lot of testosterone, a lot of guys who were all about being guys. I think it was in high school when he finally started to see examples of people being gay, other than Siu and me. And after he stopped feeling like he had this big secret, he started to not only be okay with it, but he started celebrating it, going to the gay-pride parades and wearing T-shirts about his gay family.
When he was around 17 or 18, he really started to question life. And he started coming up with these crazy things, like, “Mom, what if I decide to be homeless for a year?”
And I’m trying not to react to that, right? “Well, why would you want to have that experience, Frankie?”
And he’s like, “I want to know what it’s like to live a life where you’re not connected to material things. What would that be like?”
You know, he just started questioning himself. What did he want to be? What did he want to do? What was important? That was the big question for him: What kind of man do I want to be?
Barack Obama—that was the first place he started to find the answer. Back when Obama was still just a state senator, Frankie fell in love with him. Literally. He had, it was a little bit of an obsession over this guy. He felt like he could relate to him because Obama had this really unique background, and he used that background to his advantage. Frankie was very inspired by the idea that a man of color could challenge the status quo in the way that Obama was willing to do.
By the time he was a senior at DePaul, Frankie’s plan was, “I’m going to take a year off and do service abroad, volunteering in a Latin American country. Then, I’m going to go to law school, so that I can eventually have a political career. I’d like to start out as an alderman. Then I could be mayor. And then…”
This kid was such a planner, such a planner. He believed he was going to change the world. And I know that you hear people say that, but I’m telling you: Frankie believed that he was going to change the world.
Halloween in our family—you know, we just did it up. Every year, my partner and I would have all the little cousins come over and we’d have a party. And they would color pumpkins and bob apples, and our house was one of the most decorated on the block. So that night, Frankie came over and he went trick-or-treating with his little cousins, and put on a mask and was being very silly.
But I remember him being tired, and he seemed kind of down. We stood in our kitchen, and I looked in his face, and he said, “You know, Mom, I don’t know if I’m going to go out tonight.”
And I held his face in my hands, and I said, “Frankie, you’re 21.
This is the time to go out and have fun.”
And he said, “Yeah, I’m going to go to school and see what everybody’s doing. I don’t know if I’m going to go out or not.”
I thought that he had just overextended himself, because he always
overextended himself. A couple of weeks earlier, we’d gotten word that Frankie had won the Lincoln Laureate Award.86 He had also been
nominated to do an internship at the White House. And he had been the featured speaker at the annual Diversity Brunch at DePaul,87 hosted by
the university’s president. He was very excited about that because he liked seeing himself as a public speaker. It’s what he saw himself doing in
the future.
So when people would ask me, “How’s Frankie?” I would say, “He’s on fire. Nothing is going to stop him now.”
And I really believed it.
That night, for the first time in 10 years, my partner Siu and I decided to go out for Halloween. A bunch of us—my ex-husband and my brother-in-law, my best friend and her niece—went to a Halloween party at a bar in Wicker Park, right there on North Avenue by Damen. My costume was like a witch-type, black cape thing that was very long and a little sexy. I felt pretty good. Dancing was always something I loved to do. So I danced. I was on top of the world.
While we were there, Frankie and his dad started texting each other, and he tells us that he’s going to this party and that he would let us know when he was leaving so we could all meet up. We thought he was going to a party in Wrigleyville with a friend from high school. We had no idea that hadn’t happened. I just assumed we’d see him later that night at another party, at a bar in Lincoln Square.88
But once we got to that other party, Siu started not feeling well, so she and I decided to leave. When we came home, Victor was sleeping on the couch in the living room. I was still wearing my Halloween costume. Then Siu gets a phone call.
She says, “Joy! Go change out of those clothes right now! We’ve got to go. Right now! We’ve got to go.”
And I was like, “What’s going on?”
And then she said, “Just do it, just do it now. Just do it!”
And so I ran upstairs and I changed my clothes. And Siu doesn’t tell me what’s happened. So we’re in the car, and she’s driving, and she’s driving crazy. And I’m like, “Siu, what is going on? I’m freaking out.”
And then she said, “Frankie’s been shot.”
The next thing I know I’m in this room, this big room upstairs at Illinois Masonic Hospital and there’s a bunch of people already there. So then this, I don’t know who came, a lady, a nurse, something, and I was like, “Where is he?” And I started trying to slam through the door to get to him and a bunch of people started holding me back.
They said, “No, they’re working on him. You can’t see him.”
I’m like, “No! I have to see him. I have to be there with him.”
They would never let me go back and see him.
Until he was already gone.
The scene at the hospital was a nightmare. I was out of control. I was begging people to kill me. I tried killing myself several times. I kept on trying to find objects to cut my wrists. I tried to take shoelaces off of people. Finally, I got a key chain and I got into the bathroom and I locked myself in and I twisted it around my neck as hard as I could until there wasn’t any more give. And the key chain broke and a security guard and the police busted the door open.
Eventually, Victor got there, and we went back to see Frankie. I was numb by then. I was beyond any feeling. I tried to give Frankie a hug and it was just ... They had tried to clean him up, but there was blood coming through the sheets and ... And then I walked right out of the hospital, and walked down Wellington, towards the lake, and I was planning on jumping in and letting myself drown.
They found me before I got to the lake, and they got me to come back. And we came home and went to Frankie’s room and lay in his bed. But things just got very bad after that—worse than you could imagine your worst nightmare being. I didn’t eat for 11 days. I couldn’t connect to Victor. I couldn’t connect to Siu. You know, as far as I was concerned, I pretty much died. All I could think about was the fact that I felt Frankie suffering. I physically felt Frankie suffering. I felt like I could hear him in my head, in my heart. And I felt like he needed me. I felt like, I really felt like Frankie was struggling with dying, like he was kind of lost in between two worlds, two universes.
I kept saying, “I know people think I’m being selfish, but Frankie’s alone, and Victor’s not. And this is the toughest decision I’ve had to make. But Victor has two parents here, and Frankie doesn’t have any. And I’m gonna go with Frankie.”
How do you learn, how do you learn to live again? I don’t know how to express it, but after this happened, I couldn’t do the simplest of things. I struggled going up and down stairs. I couldn’t walk down the street by myself. I couldn’t take a bus or a train. I couldn’t go into a store without having a panic attack, breaking down crying. I mean, it took a lot of really hard work to get to the place that I’m at right now. And I continue to find ways to challenge myself to do things that are difficult. Like I recently went to the zoo with my family, and I saw all these children playing there. Being in places that have so many fond memories for me is still really hard.
But working with other survivors on a daily basis reminds me that, even though I’m in pain, there are other people who are in just as much pain. What Chicago’s Citizens for Change allows me to do is keep this tragedy, and my experience of it, in perspective. I don’t know that I would say it’s been healing to get the organization up and running, but I would definitely say that it gives me a source of motivation and strength.
And I think Frankie would be proud that I’ve become more emotionally vulnerable, so that I can love a bit more openly those that I’m closest with, especially Victor and Siu. I mean, definitely there’s still a lot of numbness.
I don’t dance anymore. And I don’t celebrate any holidays. If something
feels too celebratory, I just can’t do it. But I have had moments when I
surprise myself.
Not long ago, Victor, Siu and I went to the ocean, and she and I were standing in the water and a wave came up from behind us and splashed us. And apparently, I smiled and I laughed. And Victor took a picture of it. And he said, “Mom and Siu, I want to show you something.”
So he shows us this picture of both of us holding on to each other, laughing and smiling and standing in the ocean. And I was surprised because I didn’t know I had the capacity to do that anymore.
I just thought I would never, ever smile again.
—Interviewed by Miles Harvey
Endnotes
81 In June of 2011, Berly Valladares, a self-admitted member of the Maniac Latin Disciples, had been sentenced to 70 years in prison for supplying the gun to Gatica.
82 His full name is Francisco Valencia Sr.
83 “Toxemia” is an older term for preeclampsia, a medical condition
characterized by high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine of a
pregnant woman.
84 Siu is pronounced like Sue.
85 For the past 15 years, McCormack has worked as a financial investigator for the federal government.
86 The Lincoln Academy’s Student Laureate Awards are presented for excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities to seniors from each of the four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities in Illinois.
87 The event took place on Oct. 17, 2009.
88 Wrigleyville and Lincoln Square are affluent neighborhoods on the
North Side.
Final Words: Take a Risk
My last message. For the … young folks out there, I challenge you to take a risk. Take a risk in dreaming about a better world. Take a risk in dreaming about everything that’s possible for your life. Dream about how to improve it. Dream about bettering the lives of people arou
nd you. Dream about the need to build a better world. Dream about all the opportunities to do just that. Sometimes we may not see them, but they’re there. Maybe we need to ask questions, maybe we need to get pushed—but they’re there. Take a risk and dream about leading—leading your families, your friends, your networks, your communities. Lead them to do good, to be loving and caring people. Lead by example. Don’t let doubts, fears, pressures, concerns—don’t let that hold you back. Dream, lead and take action. We need you.
—Frankie Valencia, speaking at DePaul University two weeks before
he was murdered
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence is grounded in “collaborative storytelling,” an ancient form that is taking on new importance in an age when online and mobile platforms allow us to capture and share our experiences on a scale never before possible. Instead of a single narrative by a lone author, collaborative storytelling involves many voices.
This project involved three key groups of collaborators. The first consisted of the 80-plus students at DePaul who were intimately involved in every step of the writing, editing, production and promotion of this book. I’m incredibly proud of them, and I’m awed by their passion, wisdom and skill. Special thanks are in order for the three first-rate research assistants who worked on this project: Erika Simpson, Lisa Applegate and Molly Pim.
The second collaboration was with the amazing creative team, cast, crew and staff at Steppenwolf, who transformed the stories that my students and I collected into a powerful theater piece. I regret that I can’t recognize them all by name, but I do want to express my lasting gratitude to artistic consultant Kelli Simpkins, dramaturg Megan Shuchman and director Edward F. Torres, all of whom I cherish as theatrical mentors and creative co-conspirators. I also want to thank Steppenwolf Artistic Director Martha Lavey for her faith in the project—and in a first-time playwright. And finally, a huge and heartfelt thanks to my friend and fellow schemer, Hallie Gordon, the artistic and educational director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults, whose vision inspired this project and whose leadership made it a reality.
