Two days after 11-year-old Ephraim Brown was shot at his cousin's birthday party, another one of his cousins turned five.
Trying their best to make him feel special, friends and family passed around a plate to collect pocket money for a last-minute cake, while the newly minted five-year-old zipped past their legs.
"My young child, where you going?" his aunt, Ingrid Osborne, called out. While she couldn't control how much chocolate her nephew scarfed down - nobody bothers to ration at such times - her eyes followed the boy vigilantly.
The modest, two-storey houses on Sheppard Avenue west of Jane Street are sometimes called "the projects" by residents. But with moms and dads barbecuing in their well-kept front yards and kids on tricycles barrelling down sidewalks, they have the feel of a kid-friendly suburb. Now, the first gang shooting in the neighbourhood, as far as anyone can remember, has put everyone's guard up.
"We have more winter than summer, so the few months that the kids have, it's like they don't have it now," says Ms. McLeish, a mother of four (who prefers not to disclose her first name). Her two boys, both in their early teens, used to play basketball after dinner until 8 p.m. or so, but "no more, nah-uh," she says.
Every time a gang shooting breaks out in Toronto, it's the moms who think about it the most. Super-caution and anxiety reign. Life becomes circumscribed. With three gun deaths near residences the past weekend alone, mothers, aunts and grandmothers, in neighbourhoods hit by violence, are laying down systems to keep their children safe.
While Ms. McLeish hopes to compensate for the restrictions on after-school, outdoor play by taking her children to Centre Island and Canada's Wonderland, she doesn't think her new rule will be difficult to enforce. "They understand. They're scared too," she says. "They haven't been able to sleep at night. They're thinking of the little boy."
They're not the only ones. On the night of the five-year-old's birthday party, the nearby parking-lot basketball court was empty all evening. At dusk, the only children out were on their way home. "My mom has told me I have to be home before the streetlights come on. That's so ghetto!" giggled one teenager, walking home with girlfriends.
Ms. McLeish has already told her children what to do if they hear gunshots. "Don't run - just lie low, get flat," she says. And yet, as one of Ms. McLeish's friends points out, it's important for them not to pass their adult anxiety on to their little ones. "You don't want them to worry," says the woman, another working mother with four children. "You want to free their minds."
Ms. Osborne wears her long hair in a ponytail, chuckles even when she's heartbroken and often draws out her words for emphasis. She's no stranger to the fatal reality of gang violence. Her 29-year-old brother, Matthew Osborne, was gunned down while sitting in his car outside an after-hours club in Scarborough four years ago.
Now, living in an apartment in Scarborough with her 17-year-old daughter, Angie, she has learned, like many moms in gang-plagued Toronto, to channel her energy away from anger and despair and toward her role as a fiercely loving parent and aunt.
It's not an easy role. Ms. Osborne not only juggles two jobs while raising her teen; she also works to balance her own apprehensions with her child's freedom. That means she often gets up in the wee hours of the morning to meet Angie on the street and pay her taxi fare.
"When she goes out, I got to know where [and] when she's going to be back. If she tells me the party finishes at 3, I'm calling her quarter to 3," Ms. Osborne says. "I tell her, 'Call me when you get in the taxi.' "
And while she tries her best to protect her daughter, she also tells Angie to trust her intuition. "I say, if you don't feel right, leave. If you have a cousin with you, you make them leave too."
Often, Ms. Osborne's daughter will call late at night and say, "Mommy, I'm not feeling it; I'm coming home." Twice, there has been a shooting at a party after Angie has left.
In a gun-saturated environment, spats arising at parties and clubs can easily turn deadly, so Ms. Osborne constantly reminds her daughter to walk away from any fights. "If you throw a punch, you don't know what they have in their pocket," she tells her.
It can be critical to know who your offspring is hanging out with. "My mother would tell us, 'Don't have a lot of friends. It can get complicated,' " Ms. Osborne says. "She never said, 'You can't be friends with this person.' She just said, 'Know who your friends are, who you can trust.' And that's what I say." She encourages her nieces and nephews to travel "in a pack."
As the go-to aunt for her nieces and nephews, Ms. Osborne has also given what she calls "the talk" to the young men in her life. "If you're in a gang, you're there for life. If you try to come out of that gang, your life could end. It's no longer a game."
Despite all the safeguards, Ms. Osborne will wake up in the middle of a weekend night with a "weird feeling." She will call Angie and tell her that she's giving her 10 minutes to say bye to her friends and get in a taxi. "She listens. She doesn't want me to come and embarrass her. She knows me. She tells me, 'Mommy, I know you're crazy.' " In light of a shooting that many neighbours can only describe with the word "crazy," such vigilance is the only way for moms to stay sane.
Special to The Globe and Mail
