Driven by Purpose: Exploring Spirituality in Black Mothers’ Coping with Loss of Children to Gun Homicide

Abstract

The death of a Black child to gun homicide presents unique and ongoing coping challenges for Black parents. Current studies have provided insights into the role of spirituality in facilitating adjustment after homicide loss. However, the extent to which spirituality serves as a viable coping resource for Black mothers, who are disproportionately affected by gun homicide deaths of their children, remains unexplored. This exploratory phenomenological study explored the role of spirituality as a healing resource in 15 Black mothers’ grief experiences following the loss of their children to gun homicide. Thematic analysis revealed the role of spirituality in helping Black mothers find purpose in their loss. Following the loss of their children, mothers’ spiritual values enabled them to come to the realization that the deaths served a purpose. Spirituality served as the fuel to strengthen and renew their purpose in their grief journey. Gun homicide grief experience is an entanglement of systemic inequality and racial oppression. Exploring spirituality as a coping resource in the grieving experiences of Black survivors serves as an opportunity for enhancing community-based, culturally relevant, and spiritually-informed interventions, to adequately meet their coping needs.

As in other countries, gun violence in Canada is considered a significant public health problem. Among G7 countries with the highest firearm mortality rates, Canada ranked third behind the United States and France (Naghavi et al., 2018). Between 2021 and 2022, firearm-related crimes in Canada rose by 8.9%, reaching 36.7 incidents per 100,000 population. Toronto saw the highest increase among Canada’s 41 census metropolitan cities, with a 36% rise from 2021 and 93% from 2013 (Statistics Canada, 2024). In Canada, young Black males are disproportionately affected by gun violence injuries and death (Gomez, 2020; Khenti, 2018). In the City of Toronto, gun homicide rates are higher for Black males than the general Toronto population. Although Blacks comprise only about 7.5% of the Toronto population, they accounted for about 50% of all gun homicide deaths between 2004 and 2019 (Khenti, 2022). Majority of Black youth killed by guns in Toronto resided in socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and several of them had previously lost loved ones to gun violence in these neighbourhoods (Bailey et al., 2024).

Gun homicide loss presents unique and ongoing challenges for Black parents. The death of a Black child to gun homicide is wrought with racially stigmatizing discourses that challenge and shape the grief and trauma experiences of Black parents (Bailey, Clarke, & Salami, 2015). Black mothers, especially, bear the unequal burden of the psychological and social complexities arising from losing children to gun violence. They grapple with heightened levels of post-traumatic stress which render their grief experiences complicated and prolonged (Bailey, Clarke, & Salami, 2015; Huggins & Hinkson, 2022). Research showed that the racial stigma attached to gun violence affects Black mothers’ access to victim services and social support and weakens public empathy for their grief (Hannays-King et al., 2015). Anti-Black racism embedded in the politics of gun violence (Leonard, 2017), is influential in shaping and reinforcing the intensity of grief outcomes for Black mothers. In Canada, gun violence discussions are politicized by ideologies and discourses of Black youth and criminality (Eizadirad, 2016). In Toronto, where Black youth are disproportionately represented in gun violence as victims and preparators, discourse is constructed around blaming Black communities and Black single motherhood for this social problem (Adjei et al., 2022; Lawson, 2014).

For decades, spirituality and religious beliefs have been foregrounded as predominant coping resources for healing, recovery, and post-traumatic growth for Black communities (Boyd-Franklin, 2010; Burke et al., 2011; Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). However, knowledge of the extent to which spirituality serves as a coping resource for Black mothers who suffer the tragic and untimely death of their children to gun homicide, is limited. Evidence shows that the loss of children to gun violence alters the assumptive worldviews of Black mothers and shatter their meaning systems, and that spirituality is central to helping them establish a process of meaning making and resilience building (Bailey et al., 2013b). Yet, the specific ways in which spirituality operates to support meaning making and modify grief responses for Black mothers and other racialized survivors of gun violence loss, is not well understood.

As both a social and a psychological experience, homicide grief carries emotional, spiritual and interactional implications (Canadian Parents of Murdered Children, 2022). Thus, the contexts in which survivors exist matter to their ability to effectively engage coping resources, whether socially or spiritually. Black mothers who lose children to gun violence continue to struggle with psychological vulnerabilities instigated by racism and other social inequities that preceded the loss. These vulnerabilities are further amplified by the traumatic impacts of the death and the absence of needed grief support (Hannays-King et al., 2015). While spirituality and religious beliefs are generally instrumental to Black coping, it is also recognised that the profoundness of homicide grief can threaten survivors’ spiritual strength and trigger a spiritual crisis that may transpire into complicated grief (Burke & Neimeyer, 2014; Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). It is therefore important to understand the role of spirituality in homicide grief across context and culture.

This paper draws on findings from a larger exploratory qualitative study conducted with stakeholders working in violence prevention and victims’ support services at the community and organizational level, and with survivors who lost loved ones to gun violence in Canada. The larger study explored contextual factors impacting the occurrence of gun violence and the availability/accessibility of services and supports for survivors of gun homicide in Canada. Spirituality, as a coping resource in the absence of system support, was predominant in the narrative of surviving Black mothers in the study who lost children to gun violence. In this paper, we conceptualise the role of spirituality in Black mothers’ experience with gun homicide loss.

Literature Review

Homicide Loss and Mothers’ Grief

Parents of murdered children struggle with intense and prolonged psychological consequences frequently manifested through post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and complicated grief (Burke & Neimeyer, 2014; Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). Zakarian et al.’s (2019) study with homicide survivors (half of the sample were bereaved mothers) showed clinically elevated levels of PTSD and complicated grief (CG) among them, along with difficulty finding purpose or meaning in their loss. Complicated grief, an incrementally debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening grief response associated with profound separation distress, intrusive thoughts, and a sense of meaningless and emptiness, is most evident among homicide survivors (Burke et al., 2011). Factors influencing these outcomes among homicide survivors include the suddenness of the death, social stigma, feelings of guilt, and other social stressors (Nakajima et al., 2012).

Black mothers who lose children to gun homicide experience social challenges that weigh heavily on their grief and healing experiences. Research revealed that race-based stigma associated with gun violence loss implicated Black mothers’ coping, their appraisal of the loss; and their ability to build resilience (Bailey et al., 2013a). In particular, the racial ideologies of criminality that often dominate public conversations about the gun violence death of Black youth work to devalue the significance of their children’ lives, disregard the worthiness of Black mothers’ grief and compromise their access to grief/coping resources (Bailey, Clarke, & Salami, 2015). In the throes of their grief, Black mothers are often compelled to publicly advocate against the constraints of pathologizing discourses of criminalization intended to justify their children’ deaths and undermine their humanity (Carter, 2018; Washington, 2020). Studies that explored the experience of Black mothers who lost Black sons to homicide showed that the racial connotations underpinning their deaths compelled mothers to defend their sons’ identities, while navigating intense grief and trauma from their tragic and untimely death (Huggins et al., 2020; Huggins & Hinkson, 2022). By doing so, Black mothers are relegated to the responsibility of repairing the humanity of their children from the onslaught of racial degradation, even in their death.

Although social support is beneficial in promoting bereaved Black mothers’ resilience (Bailey et al., 2013a), a lack of available formal and informal social support presents a challenge in their post-homicide healing experience (Hannays-King et al., 2015; T. L. Sharpe, 2008). Similar consequences of diminished social relationships are seen among street-identified Black women who suffer cumulative loss of loved ones to gun homicide (Hitchens, 2023). This consequential alienation of Black homicide survivors from social ties that have historically sustained their existence and belonging is described by Carter (2018) as a “social death”—an extension of slavery that put Black homicide survivors at greater risk for disenfranchised and isolated grief. For several Black mothers, such social isolation in their grief is an overlapping encounter with concurrent vulnerabilities of poverty, living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and other structures of oppression (Hannays-King et al., 2015). While access to and use of healing resources can mediate traumatic stress responses to living out these disadvantages and facilitate meaning-making and psychological adjustment for homicide survivors (Johnson & Armour, 2016; Mastrocinque et al., 2015), with little access to social supports, many Black mothers learn to navigate their grief through the cultivation and assertion of spirituality/religious faith (Carter, 2018).

Homicide Loss and Black Spiritual/Religious Coping

Both religion and spirituality serve as predominant coping resources for healing, recovery, and post-traumatic growth (Boyd-Franklin, 2010; Burke et al., 2011; Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). Spirituality and religion are different, but interconnected concepts (Paul Victor & Treschuk, 2020). Religion can refer to the formal practice of a core set of beliefs, religious values, culture, and practices in a faith-based institution or denomination (Boyd-Franklin, 2010). Spirituality can be intertwined with participation in a faith-based institution but is not necessarily reliant on the doctrine of religion; it is an intrinsic human need that determines one’s personal philosophy and personae (Boyd-Franklin, 2010; Lancaster & Palframan, 2009). Both religion and spirituality provide comfort during crises; however, finding meaning in life is an important outcome of spirituality (Paul Victor & Treschuk, 2020). As spirituality is often experienced through religious practices and church involvement (Paul Victor & Treschuk, 2020), Black communities’ lives and culture are intricately connected to both spirituality and religion.

Described as cultural assets, religiosity and spirituality have been deeply rooted in all systems of Black survival, serving as sources of strength, resilience, resistance, and protection in dealing with loss, oppression, racism, structural inequities, and discrimination (Jacob et al., 2023; J. J. Park et al., 2020). Studies have demonstrated that Black people struggling with a range of personal and social difficulties have positively engaged in spirituality and religious coping. This includes coping with mental and psychiatric disorders (Taylor et al., 2021); managing the stress of anti-Black racism (Jacob et al., 2023; Prosper et al., 2021); dealing with trauma and substance use (Blakey, 2016); navigating identity development (Kawakami et al., 2020); coping with HIV stigma (Miller, 2019); and even managing the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic (Hamilton et al., 2021).

The role spirituality and religion play in Black community’s coping and transformation following tragic loss is unfolding. Research shows that religious and spiritual coping help to modulate the effects of trauma and oppression and offer a sense of hope and peace to Black survivors’ coping and adaptation following the death of loved ones (T. L. Sharpe & Boyas, 2011). T. Sharpe et al. (2024) found that African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) survivors of homicide used spirituality/religious faith to deal with the grief and despair of the loss. For many of these survivors, spirituality was their only accessible coping strategy. Black communities also engage spiritual and religious coping to find meaning in homicide loss, especially in the context of the racial stressors surrounding homicide deaths. In Lee et al.’s (2020)-study, spiritual and religious coping allowed young Black men who lost loved ones to homicide to establish hope and meaning to travail the grief and trauma from their tragic loss, and deal with their own precarity to homicide. They embraced the protection of God to navigate their vulnerability to homicide and construct meaning in the loss of multiple friends and family members to community violence. In the case of Black mothers who lose children to gun homicide, spirituality and religious practices were found to be inextricably tied to their post-homicide resilience building and meaning making (Bailey et al., 2013b). As shown, religious and spiritual coping are integral in helping homicide survivors make sense of their loss and find meaning to transform their grief (Johnson & Zitzmann, 2021). According to C. L. Park and Ai (2006) finding meaning after traumatic events “involves coming to see or understand a situation in a different way and reviewing and reforming one’s beliefs and goals in order to regain consistency. . .” (p. 393).

Importantly, homicide survivors’ relationship with spirituality and religion is never straightforward; it is a complex interplay between anger, forgiveness, comfort, and their relationship to the religious community (Mastrocinque et al., 2020). Johnson and Armour (2016) affirmed that while spirituality and religion serve a comforting role in homicide survivors’ healing, some survivors wrestled with their spirituality and with their belief in God at different stages of their grief. African Americans experiencing traumatic loss to homicide were found to wrestle with spirituality at considerably higher rates than their Caucasian counterparts (Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). As Black mothers are disproportionately overrepresented as homicide survivors, further research attention is needed to understand implications of spirituality and religion in their grief and coping experiences. The few studies to date focusing specifically on the grief experiences of Black mothers bereaved by gun homicide loss have shown that spirituality and religious beliefs in meaning making and purpose finding, remained dominant themes in Black mothers’ narrative. Yet, studies have not specifically explored the mechanisms of spirituality or religious practices in supporting Black mothers to find purpose in homicide loss and grief.

Research Question

In this paper we explore the following question: What is the role of spirituality for Black mothers coping with the gun homicide death of their children?

Method

Study Design

The larger study was conducted with key informants and survivors of gun violence in Canada between 2013 and 2016 to understand contextual factors and challenges in services and support for gun violence survivors. This study used an exploratory phenomenological approach (Creswell 2013), underpinned by the philosophy of interpretative phenomenological analysis to guide the data collection (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2021). Given the complexity of the social forces that shape experiences of gun homicide for Black people, an exploratory phenomenological approach was appropriate for this study as it allowed for interviews with participants to be conducted in an interactive and conversational manner that facilitated a comfortable space for rich, diverse, and critical engagements of the nuances of their lived experiences (Alase, 2017).

Interpretative phenomenology is concerned with exploring participants’ lived experiences through in-depth and participant-centered inquiry aimed at understanding how participants make sense of their experiences (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2021). As the experience of gun homicide is not a widely explored phenomenon, phenomenology methodology allows for the exploration of multiple and holistic perspectives of participants’ experiences (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2021). Consistent with this approach, interviews with key informants explored their experiences with and perspective of contextual factors influencing service decisions and provisions, organizational challenges to meet the needs of survivors, and policy recommendations to improve survivors’ experiences. Interviews with gun homicide survivors focused on their experiences with trauma, coping, access to service, and recommendations for service improvement.

Sample and Context

In-depth interviews were conducted with 41 participants in the larger study. This included 21 key informants working in diverse areas of crime prevention and victim services, and 20 survivors who lost loved ones to gun homicide. Participants were between the ages of 38 to 63 years, and combined, they represented six provinces across Canada. All participants were required to speak and write English. Fifteen of the 20 survivors identified as Black mothers between the ages of 38-55 years who lost children to gun violence and resided in Toronto, Canada. The 15 Black mothers interviewed were at different duration of their loss and different stages of their grief. All except one of the mothers reported immigrating to Toronto from a Caribbean country. Thirteen of them were residing in the same neighbourhood as the time of the loss. All mothers were of a Christian faith, and a Pentecostal denomination. Five of the mothers have not attended church regularly after the death of their children. Two of them had moved to a different, but similarly impoverished neighborhood. None of the mothers reported being married. As the mothers discussed their trauma and coping experiences related to the shooting death of their children, the role of spirituality in their coping emerged as a dominant narrative in their shared experiences.

Recruitment and Data Collection

Subsequent to approval from Toronto Metropolitan University Ethics Review Board (formerly Ryerson University), survivors were recruited using a snowball technique. Audio recorded telephone interviews lasting 45 to 60 mins were done with 21 key informants and three survivors, living across six Canadian provinces. In-person interviews were conducted with 17 survivors living in Toronto, including 15 Black mothers, who formed the subsample for the current study. In-person interviews lasted 60 to 90 mins, and explored stress and coping, access to services and coping resources, and policy recommendations. While an interview guide was prepared and available during the interviews, the interviewer (1st author) focused on exploring and expanding on information, thoughts, and reflections that unfolded in conversation with survivors, as congruent with interpretative phenomenological methodology (Alase, 2017; Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2021). In-person interviews took place in a quiet space of the participants’ choice, such as their homes or a room in a public library. All interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and analyzed within two months of the interviews and erased from the recorder, as per ethics protocol.

Given the traumatizing nature of gun violence loss, ethical considerations were duly followed. In addition to following ethical requirements for signed consents and preserving participants’ confidentiality and choice, participants were given the option of in-person interviews being conducted in the presence of a licensed grief therapist or being given the phone number of the grief therapist for follow-up if needed. Three participants (survivors) consented to having the in-person interviews conducted with the therapist present for grief support. Some survivors were tearful during the interviews and were supported by the first author who conducted the interviews. After the interviews, participants were provided the contact information of the grief therapist should they require further assistance. No ethical concerns transpired during recruitment, interviews or in follow-up for any of the participants.

Data Analysis

All interviews from the larger study were analyzed using thematic analysis. The larger study involved a collective open-ended sharing of the insights and experiences of key informants and survivors to understand contextual issues related to services and support for gun violence survivorship. Thematic analysis allowed for a systematic identification and organizing of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2012). This involved identifying and coding themes and mapping the connections between themes. A thematic mapping of the themes identified the relationships between the themes and codes with a detailed description of each theme (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Vaismoradi et al., 2013). Thematic analysis was used across the complete data set, as well as for a more in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of spirituality that was generated/constructed from Black mothers’ narrative. Once the theme of spirituality was identified, the analysis process continued with a more systematic investigation of the patterns and characteristics of ideas related to spirituality. The core essence of Black mothers’ narrative related to spiritual engagement and practices were highlighted and carefully examined to understand the role of spirituality in their coping experiences. This resulted in a unique and intricate pattern between the codes for this theme, which were further categorized to represent overarching themes of mothers’ experience with spirituality in a contextual way. The understanding of spirituality as an important coping resource for Black people is not new, however, the role of spirituality in the coping experiences of Black mothers of murdered children is an important aspect of this study that broadens the representation of bereavement experiences in the literature.

Results

Three key themes emerged from the analysis of the data that illuminated the ways spirituality supported and strengthened grieving Black mothers in their healing experiences: (a) spirituality reconstructs purpose in loss, (b) spirituality fuels actions toward purpose, and (c) spirituality renews emotional strength toward purpose. These themes collectively demonstrate the centrality of spirituality in helping Black mothers repurpose their grief to find meaning in their loss and engage social actions to challenge the injustice of their children’ violent death. Following the death of their children, Black mothers relied on spirituality to situate the death within a divine purpose and took action toward either understanding or accomplishing this purpose. These themes also highlight ways spirituality intersects with grief and trauma to fuel emotional strength, hope, and renewal in their pursuit of this purpose.

Spirituality Reconstructs Purpose in Loss

Black mothers acknowledged that the death of their Black children occurred within enduring systems of adversities that required them to adopt a spiritual framework for appraising and making sense of their violent death. Spirituality provided a lens through which Black mothers found meaning and purpose to transform their grief into a meaningful perspective. The loss of their children was perceived as a divine purpose they are responsible for fulfilling. This perspective enabled them to move toward healing:

What gives me strength is my belief that this [death] happened for a reason and with God all things are possible. This is another adversity in a long life of struggle, but I believe God never gives you more than you can manage, and he created me for such a purpose as this. (Participant 4)

The realization that the death happened for a purpose fostered a renewed sense of strength and courage for mothers while they acknowledged the racial impediments to Black men’ survival. Ensuring that the loss of their children was not in vain represented a path to their purpose. Not all mothers had clarity of the purpose of their loss; however, many came to recognize the loss of their children as an opportunity to create a better future for others. As such, mothers understood the death of their children as an opportunity to build a more equitable and just society for Black men:

My son did not die without a purpose, he died for a reason. He died so that someone else can live and live through me. I have to make sure that I do what I can do to fulfill that purpose. . . our Black men are not living, I want them to live (Participant 3).

Spirituality provided the mothers a moral sense of direction to pursue further understanding of the purpose for which their children died. For some mothers, spirituality was not only a coping resource, but a catalyst for transforming the struggles of their children’ lives into a purpose for their death. As captured by one mother: “The struggles in [son’s] life means something to me. . .so until this purpose for his death is done, I can’t do anything else, I have to see it to the end. . . I have to fulfill this purpose (Participant 8). This understanding of the death serving a purpose transformed their perspective and freed them of the need to question or blame God for the death. “I never ever questioned God. . . I never did. And I will never do it,” one mother emphasized (Participant 1).

Despite feeling overwhelming grief, most mothers found comfort in the understanding that God would offer them protection to accomplish the purpose for which their children died. Mothers sought divine refuge and strength early in their loss even before knowing or understanding the purpose. Spirituality offered a sense of safety and protection against the trauma and grief that unfolded in the aftermath of their loss, and in their process of constructing purpose:

When the death happened, I looked up when the rain was falling. I looked up in the sky and say God, whatever it is, you know what it is, so all I ask for you to do is to give me strength, guide me, protect me and keep me and let me do whatever it is that I must do. . . (Participant 11)

Mothers’ spiritual engagement gave rise to an awareness of how prior engagements and convictions served as preparation for them to develop a consciousness of the meaning of the loss and situate this meaning into their life journey:

When [son] passed away, I was in bible school, I was gonna become a Minister. I wanted to actually be a Christian counsellor. . .I believe the spiritual path that I was on before (son) passed was all to help me to get through his passing. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that God was in my life so that I would survive his passing. . .and make a difference (Participant 6):

Mothers felt that these prior experiences enhanced their psychological resilience to cope with the trauma and the adversities of the loss. For one mother, preparation to cope with grief and understand the spiritual purpose of the loss happened through prior engagements to support other grieving gun homicide survivors. This purpose she felt was reinforced by the collective grief shared with other mothers who lost children, who she now joins on the journey of pain and healing:

. . .When I said I was prepared, God had walked me through all those other moms’ experiences to make me strong so I can know how to deal with mine when it comes. When I hear about shootings, I would run to the moms whether I know them or not. Sometimes I’ll write words of encouragement, words from the Bible and just bring it to them. But I didn’t know mine was gonna come so soon or it was going to come at all. . .(Participants 8)

Mothers’ spiritual beliefs and convictions facilitated a sense of purpose that positions the death of their children into God’s plan for their lives. Spirituality affirms a sense of stability for mothers to understand how even their past experiences in social justice work have been responsible for unfolding the purpose of the deaths within divine intentions and motivations.

Spirituality Fuels Action Toward Purpose

The spiritual meaning that Black mothers ascribed to the death of their children instilled in them a deep sense of altruism, courage, and direction that continued to fuel their purpose and recovery. On their journey of grief and purpose, Black mothers engaged in various altruistic actions and activism to create change. These included initiating scholarships in their children’s names, establishing peer support groups, supporting other grieving mothers, participating in political advocacy and awareness activities, encouraging and supporting youth, and speaking out against social injustices that lead to gun violence among Black youth. Their spiritual beliefs gave meaning to their actions.

When I started the scholarship program in [son’s] name, I knew I had his blessing to build up the youth in the neighbourhood. [Son] was a youth worker, and he wanted the youth to understand how good education is. . .if he did not die, I would not be doing this (Participant 2).

. . . I help other moms who might not have the same culture or faith belief or the same religion. . .usually I find I get a good feeling when I help other mothers because they feel that I’m not judging them, I’m not forcing anything on them. And they see me in the place where they want to be as well. . .(Participant 8)

The mothers’ perspectives of fulfilling a purpose invoked a sense of agency and offered them the moral justification to continue in their pursuit of change. They understood the death of their children as a mission for social justice, which energized and motivated them to never give up on honouring their children’ lives. Spirituality represented an act of resistance against the social struggles contributing to their children’ death. Spirituality enabled the mothers to see beyond their present suffering and offered them hope to strive for change despite the challenges they faced. Mothers articulated that their spiritual beliefs and faith in God helped to continually fuel and sustain their actions:

. . .they leaked it to the media when my other son got in trouble with the law. . .this was to stop my work to find my [dead] son’s killer and hold the police accountable for their action. . . but God has given me a work to do and I will never stop until the day I die (Participant 8).

Spiritual support is number one in terms of yourself because it helps you to find yourself, to heal yourself. . .starting the support group helps to first heal my wounds, and then help other mothers to keep mothering Black youth in our community. I am not gonna let this stop me. . . I am not gonna let this stand in my way of moving forward. I am gonna do everything in my power to make sure young people can get ahead. That is my purpose (Participant 1).

Several mothers recognized that their efforts toward making a change would be ongoing and acknowledged the power of God in sustaining them in their weakest moments. Knowing that God would continue to sustain them enabled the mothers to channel their pain toward actions for change. Their understanding about the transformative power of their loss provided a sense of continuity, comfort, and hope in their suffering. One mother poignantly said: I am suffering now, but I know God is sustaining me for a bigger purpose, one that will let all of this pain be worth it (Participant 9). While the mothers struggled through fluctuating periods of intense grief, with reflection, they realized that God provided them with the psychological energy to overcome challenges and personal vulnerabilities in their altruism/activism:

. . .the morning of the media interview was hard, I felt like a fake, but I told myself these youth dying in [neighbourhood location] need me to speak for them. . .and God fill my mouth with the power and the boldness I did not know I had. . . (Participant 11)

. . .Now my counseling sessions are helping youth just like [son] . . .but it took a while to get there. There are mornings when I wish I did not wake up. . . even after [son’s] death, the relationship with God sustained me throughout many thoughts of suicide, even though I didn’t know he was sustaining me. Very quietly he sustained me for this purpose (Participant 6).

The obligation to understand and engage with what mothers viewed as a spiritual calling furnished them with a strong determination to persevere and reinforced their commitment to creating social change within communities. They discussed this as being driven; a drive that kept them focused and rejuvenated in times of deep sorrow and grief. One mother explained, . . .if I fall down, I get up again and keep going because there is something ahead of me that I must fulfill. . . I’m driven by a purpose. I have to stay strong and keep going (Participant 6). Another mother articulated that the drive to situate the purpose of the loss into her life was even felt physically:

. . .God knows the reason why he chose to call [son] home that night. . . This reason is what drives me. . . It’s what gives me the power that lies within me. When I even think of these things, I feel such a strong drive within my own body to keep doing the work for which he died (Participant 4).

Through their everyday actions toward change, Black mothers worked to undermine structures of oppression and racism by relocating their response to their children’s death from simply grieving and mourning toward uplifting and preserving their legacy. While inequity and racism may have informed their deaths, mothers sought to transform the oppressive murder of their children into racial legacies:

. . .God has set forth a counselling anointing in my life, and I feel like [son’s] death was unfortunate, was devastating, but it’s going to be a legacy, and not a legacy with either his or my name attached, a legacy of help, of happiness, and something that will embody who he was - a helper. . . (Participant 6).

My son was the only Black youth killed by guns in [City] to have his name attached to a legacy project that reached Canadian Parliament. I have to work hard to keep this legacy alive. . .many Black youth are plastered as criminals and deviants, and their life and death is like nothing (Participant 2).

Whether to create an enduring racial legacy that embodies the memories of their children or champion social change in communities, spirituality helped mothers to position the death of their children within the broader context of social justice. Spirituality fostered a sense of empowerment, clarity, and courage for Black mothers to nurture and pursue actions they viewed as the purpose for which their children died.

Spirituality Renews Emotional Strength Toward Purpose

Spirituality fostered a high sense of hope and optimism which enabled Black mothers to maintain renewed strength, as they navigated their journey of grief. My heavenly father instills strength into me. He gives me life to do what I need to do. He restores my soul. That’s my strength. Nothing can be stronger than the strength that God gives to me to fulfill His purpose, explained one mother (Participant 5). The practice of prayer served as a buffer that protected mothers from the re-traumatization that comes with remembering their children’s death. For most mothers, praying to God was a source of solace and strength that helped them foster resilience, regain control, and establish spiritual equilibrium. One mother explained that “when God calls you, he gives you strength. I pray and ask God for the wisdom, and the strength and guidance He provides, yeah, I can get up and keep on going, but you have to follow-up on your belief.” (Participant 6). Prayer also served as a coping resource for many mothers:

After his death, I pray more. I changed from talking to myself to talking to God in prayer. This helps make me strong for my other children and to cope everyday. . .I never blame God, I just ask for His strength to make a difference in this world without [son] (Participant 7).

The grief of losing their children wore profoundly on Black mothers. Spirituality enabled the mothers to cope and to maintain a positive outlook. Some mothers discussed that prayer in difficult moments provided them with a fresh dose of spiritual renewal in the pursuit of their purpose:

I find myself going back to the scriptures. I still ask why, because I don’t understand the reason why this happened, but talking to God everyday makes me feel calm and renewed because I know there is a purpose (Participant 2).

Rather than dwelling in the circumstances leading to the death of their children, mothers sought for strength and inner peace to fulfill their purpose of making an impact. In addition to praying, some mothers found that reading the Bible provided them mental and emotional strength to accomplish the purpose that the death represented. As one mother explained, “when I get emotional, I get into the word, I will meditate on certain things that I am seeing in my mind and think of what the word of God says to me and let that comfort me. When I do that, it makes me feel strength I did not know I have (Participant 3). Prayers helped the mothers to re-established spiritual connection and provided them with the fortitude and solace to navigate their grief and loss. Even though many stated that they felt physically weakened and drained from their everyday struggle with grief, they were mentally strengthened in ways they could not fully explain. One mother expressed, “I cannot explain it because it is not a physical strength, it is a spiritual strength, it is a mental strength. . .even when my body feels weak I can move forward.” (Participant 4).

The belief that the purpose they are fulfilling in their children’s death would keep them connected to their children, gave mothers the strength to continue engaging in advocacy and activism to bring about meaningful change:

Faith is what keeps me strong. . .[son] is in a better place and with my own faith and belief I know I will see him again. My son is there in spirit in all that I do to keep guns off the streets. . .I don’t think all that I do to advocate around gun violence is not a physical strength, it’s a spiritual strength. When God calls you for a purpose, he gives you strength (Participant 15).

Mothers recognized spirituality as an ever-enduring source of strength in the absence of other resources and support. They reverberated the reality of the deprivation in healing resources they face as Black survivors of gun homicide loss:

There were no treatments to cushion the blow of the death for me. The only cushion I had is my belief in God, my faith, and my trust in him to take me through. Because I know he wouldn’t leave me, nor would he forsake me. . . That’s what gave me my own strength to keep doing what I have to do (Participant 11).

Grief is not a linear process for Black mothers. Many experienced low points in their spiritual connection throughout their grief journey. Mothers discussed feeling retraumatized, discouraged and isolated on their children’ birthdays, Mothers’ Day, Christmas, and at other moments when past memories of their children flooded their minds. “Every Christmas the tears flow again. [He] said he would be back to help me put up the Christmas tree. It is ten years, and I am still waiting,” said one mother (Participant 4). In difficult moments during their grief, mothers felt their spiritual engagement provided them with refuge and emotional strength to cope:

. . .. So when I feel down or when I feel the world is against me, it’s closing in on me, I find strength in my God, and that gives me what I need and everything is good again (Participant 10).

Mothers believed that their connection to God lightened their overwhelming burden of grief and loss, which was crucial to their coping, overcoming, and to fulfilling their purpose. Mothers spoke of their spiritual beliefs and religious practices as sources of continual spiritual renewal even during the times they felt most spiritually diminished. This gives them renewed hope of the enduring presence of God in their healing journey:

Before (son) died I was grasping after God with both hands and to be honest, I feel like I fell on my face after he died. Now I feel I need to be grasping after God with both hands again, but I feel like not leaning over too far. But everyday God renews my strength to raise my head from the grief. . .Even though my heart is still scared some days, God does not allow me to give up, he keeps lifting me up again and again for a purpose I don’t yet know (Participant 6).

The continual and unwavering assurance of God’s presence in the lives of the mothers became a constant source of spiritual fortitude for them, providing them with a sense of security and emotional upliftment, and a renewed sense of optimism and courage to persevere during difficult moments of their lives.

Discussion

The analysis for this paper focused on the role of spirituality in the coping experiences of Black mothers who have lost children to gun homicide. The findings showed that spirituality and religious beliefs are critical to the post-homicide grieving experiences of Black mothers in reshaping their shattered perspectives and worldviews following their tragic loss. Specifically, spirituality helped mothers reconstruct the meaning of the loss, situate this meaning as a divine purpose for their lives, and renew their emotional strength as they sought to understand and accomplish the purpose they ascribed to their children’s death. While these findings parallel existing literature (Johnson & Zitzmann, 2021), this study contributes uniquely to understanding spirituality and gun homicide bereavement among Black mothers. Despite Black mothers disproportionately to gun homicide loss and trauma their bereavement experiences continue to be underrepresented in the literature.

The finding of this study must be understood within the multi-intersectional racial and social stressors underlying the untimely and tragic loss of Black youth to gun homicide. Black survivorship from any race-related suffering, including homicide loss, involves the fierce work of overcoming adversities that are well fortified in anti-Black racism. Homicide loss and grief among Black communities are steeped in racial and structural inequities that shape Black survivors’ grief experiences (T. Sharpe et al., 2024). While spirituality is well encapsulated in the philosophical and cultural worldview of Black coping (J. J. Park et al., 2020), it is evident that the ways Black mothers engage with spirituality to situate purpose in their loss and advance their efforts toward social change is regulated by racial contexts. Spiritual processing for Black mothers involves a nuanced spiritual consciousness of how systems of adversities occupy their grief and accompany their activism to honour the legacy of their children. Consequently, Black mothers’ engagement with spirituality in the loss of their children, when contextualised within sentimentalities of race, is as much a coping resource, as it is a means for social transformation.

Similar to other studies (Johnson & Zitzmann, 2021; Paul Victor & Treschuk, 2020), this study reinforces the role of spirituality in bolstering homicide survivors’ coping capacities and their emotional strength to construct meaning in their loss. However, this process is a unique experience for Black mothers. Due to the mediated and moderated impact of racism in Black youth’s gun homicide death (Poulson et al., 2021; Siegel et al., 2023), Black mothers are additionally subjected to the impact of racism-related stress—a critical dynamics between racism and environmental conditions that threaten their well-being (Prosper et al., 2021). Thus, Black mothers’ survivorship experiences are wrought with racial complexities that impose heightened levels of emotional distress and complicate their grief and healing experiences (Bailey, Clarke, & Salami, 2015; Huggins et al., 2020). As a result, meaning making for Black mothers, regardless of their spiritual positioning, is never straightforward or free of trauma and re-traumatization. So, while this and other studies (Jacob et al., 2023) demonstrate that Black women have used spirituality effectively to reduce the stress of racist experiences, their spiritual processing is complex and fluctuating. Therefore, benefits of spirituality as a personal coping resource for bereaved Black mothers navigating the racist environments of gun homicide, must be explored in mutual consideration of accessible, culturally responsive and spiritually-informed mental health care. The successful integration of racial experiences and other socio-political realities into mental health guidelines, is critical to healing and recovery for Black mothers (Harris-Robinson, 2006). Throughout their grief journey, Black mothers rely on spiritual beliefs and religious practices to bounce back from periods of intense sorrow, and to regain internal strength. Some mothers voiced that their belief in God was their only accessible resource. As a result, Black mothers, like many others in Black communities, rely heavily on the support of their churches to ignite their purpose and gain refined wisdom from their spiritual beliefs (Brewer & Williams, 2019). However, while church leaders may impart spiritual upliftment, they may not be equipped to provide trauma-informed counseling. Evidence showed that when practitioners blend the lived experiences and cultural values of racialized groups in trauma and mental health interventions, significant improvements are observed (Bryant-Davis, 2019). Given the cultural relevance of spirituality to Black communities’ survival and everyday coping, further understanding of ways practitioners can adopt a more spiritually and culturally sensitive model of care for gun homicide trauma is a priority. Alongside this priority is the importance of having professionals who are well versed in the historical contexts of Black torment to provide care and promote healing for Black mothers.

The results show that Black mothers’ engagement with spiritual/religious coping gave way to acts of justice, even in the abundance of their suffering. Whether through public advocacy, legacy affirming actions, or grass-root initiatives, Black mothers mobilised their capacities to make a difference in Black communities. Their actions materialized despite stigmatizing discourses that encircle their loss and amplify their grief and trauma experiences. Previous studies have established Black activism as a tool for Black communities to reframe the pain of racism-related stress (Hickson et al., 2022; Krueger et al., 2022). Importantly, spirituality is shown to be a significant influence in facilitating Black activism (Prosper et al., 2021). These findings are timely insofar as they reflect Black mothers’ continued efforts to prioritise social justice and equity over their grief in tempering the tragedies of gun violence and memorializing their children. By doing so, Black mothers intentionally confront racist tendencies that would deny their children’ humanity and value (Carter, 2018). It is conceivable that Black mothers’ activism may support positive shifts in gun homicide and promote healing in Black communities. However, their actions should never exist in isolation of policies and practices that prioritise social justice in gun homicide prevention, grief, and loss (Joseph et al., 2018). Social justice for Black communities navigating the deleterious and incessant trauma of gun homicide loss requires the synergy of structural, psychological, and spiritual supports. Thus, efforts at various levels of intervention must strive not only to gain knowledge of the psychological impacts of gun homicide, but to uncover the systemic inequities that stifle survivors’ coping capacities and intrude on their coping resources.

The findings, while specific to Black mothers, reinforce the overall centrality of spirituality in Black peoples’ historical navigation of suffering. However, caution should be taken in generalizing the findings to Black homicide survivors, broadly. While spirituality is central to Black overcoming and has shown to be critical to meaning making for the mothers in this study, not all Black sufferers of homicide loss are able to access and engage spirituality in times of suffering. As some authors have noted, the grief process for some sufferers may involve a spiritual crisis, that is accompanied by complicated spiritual grief (Burke & Neimeyer, 2014; Neimeyer & Burke, 2011). The disproportionate burden of suffering in gun homicide loss and grief, and their associated racially mediated social stressors (T. Sharpe et al., 2024), may present unique spiritual crises for Black sufferers that require further exploration. Despite the positive impacts of spirituality, suffering attached to social issues as gun homicide requires more extensive exploration with different groups across diverse contexts. As well, recognizing that Black spirituality is not a monolithic experience, it is important that further exploration lends to analysis of the differences in models of care to meet the diverse needs of survivors.

Limitations of the Study

All 15 Black mothers were drawn from the Toronto context. Recognizing that context matters to the experiences of gun homicide occurrences, access to coping resources, and grieving process, research on Black mothers’ coping experiences across contexts may yield understandings unique to the context being studied. This analysis focused primarily on Black mothers. For a better understanding of spiritual coping experiences among gun homicide survivors, a diverse group of survivors should be engaged. All mothers were from a Christian religious background, and specifically from a Pentecostal denomination. Nearly all mothers originated from the Caribbean context, where involvement in Christian religious faith may have heavily influenced their upbringing. These factors may influence how this segment of Black mothers engage with spiritual/religion coping following the loss of their children to gun homicide. Additionally, Blacks of a different religious faith, may engage differently with spirituality and religion in coping with loss from gun homicide. The diversity in Black religiosity, is a limitation of this study, and an important consideration for future exploration. Exploring the experiences and perspectives of different religions groups and denominations may elicit a more comprehensive understanding of the engagement of spirituality in gun homicide grief.