MY SON LAZARUS
PAMELA HESTER-JONES
The windows of Pamela Hester-Jones’ North
Side apartment are filled with pictures of a little boy with a
gap-toothed smile. Inside, the door that leads to her office is
draped with a black curtain, and the walls are covered with missing
children fliers, funeral programs, newspaper articles and more
photos of the boy whose face haunts the window.
His name was Lazarus. In 2007, the
13-year-old was beaten to death on a busy corner of Albany Park, a
North Side neighborhood that several gangs call home. His murder
remains unsolved—but that has not stopped Hester-Jones from
honoring her late son with the Lazarus Jones Save Our Children
Campaign, which hopes to keep children off the streets and get them
involved in the performing arts. It also acts as a service center
for families that have experienced trauma through violence.
Hester-Jones, 42, is a thin woman with olive
skin and a reluctant smile. She is nervous at the start of our
interview, and busily walks about watering plants and organizing
her desk. She tries to make small talk but doesn’t make eye
contact; her hands anxiously tap the surface of her desk. Rarely
does she talk about Lazarus’ murder or her own childhood, but today
is
an exception.
I grew up in the West Side of Chicago. My dad
put up a red, wooden fence. It was so high that we couldn’t look
over it. I think my dad was doing the right thing for his children,
because he didn’t want us to get in harm’s way or get into trouble.
He kind of isolated us. We couldn’t go off of the block; we could
only play in the yard and in front of the house. Back then, the
crime wasn’t as bad as it is now. You can’t have your children
outside anymore.
I let my son Lazarus go outside. I would
never do it again.
My mom and dad met at Marshall High School.
It was very interracial back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.16
My mom is Greek and German. My dad was African-American, from the
South. They married and had seven Hesters. I was 11 years old when
he passed away. He had the worst heart attack you can have. He left
seven of us for my mom. She remarried and had my little sister and
my little brother.
When I was 16, I had a baby. I never told my
mother that I was pregnant. I was very small and super thin. They
used to call me “Olive Oil,” like the cartoon. I had a basketball
in my stomach; it was shaped just like it, a perfect, little
basketball. My mom couldn’t notice because I wore this purple and
maroon jacket all the time.
My girlfriend, Regina, she told my mom when I
was eight months pregnant, and my mother called my older sister who
lives in California. My sister flew in. I was sleeping in my bed,
and they raised my shirt. I woke up and everyone was staring at my
belly.
My mom said, “Oh, Pamela, you should have
told me. You could have got an abortion.” I think she said that
because I was young and maybe she didn’t know what else to do.
Everybody was really supportive, but it was me doing all of the
work. My days were over from playing outside or doing anything.
Back then, I think I didn’t know what I was missing in my life, but
my son Jasper was like my shelter. I’m so glad that I didn’t tell
my mom and I’m so happy Jasper is here today. He’s a fine young man
and I’m so proud of him.
Jasper’s father died in high school. He was
playing Russian roulette with his friends and he got shot in the
head. I went to the funeral, and that was my first experience with
someone dying from an injury or being killed. I went to prom with
his friends. They said, “No, you’re not going to miss your prom.
Come with us.” I’m so glad I didn’t miss it. I was nominated for
prom queen. But it was sad. We had our prom on a boat on Lake
Michigan, and I remember going to the bathroom and crying. I was
thinking about him. We would have gone together.
After graduation, I worked at Bennigan’s as a
food-runner, and went to school for a nursing assistant
certificate. I received two: one for advanced nursing and a regular
one. Later, I went back to school to become a cardiologist
technician. It was a great experience and I met a lot of doctors
working at Evanston Hospital.
My last year there was when it happened to
Lazarus. That was my last year ever doing that type of work,
because my life has changed.
Antonio Jones came into my life when Jasper
was 4 years old. We married and I had Lazarus. Antonio had gone to
college and worked as a designer. He made the beautiful carpets and
the clothes. He was a great father, a great provider. Lazarus and
his dad did a lot of things together, like roller-skating and
golfing.
Lazarus was 10 when Antonio went to jail. It
was drugs. Attempt to deliver drugs, I guess that’s how they say
it. His friends were doing it and he wanted to make more money.
From my understanding, the police were building a case on him for
two or three years. They finally arrested him and they gave him 20
years and he has to do 10. Never been in jail for nothing. I just
couldn’t believe he got that much time. We got a divorce in 2009.
We’re still the best of friends. He really didn’t do anything to
me; you choose your own paths in life.
In 2007, Jasper, Lazarus and I were living
near the corner of Foster and Lincoln Avenues in Lincoln Square. I
wanted to be on the North Side, by my mom’s house, and I always
lived where there were different cultures and different
nationalities. I never wanted to live in an area where there was
just one side, so my children always went to school where there
were interracial children. Lazarus’ school was Budlong Elementary.
There were Greeks, Asians and Latinos. It was a whole variety of
cultures. Lazarus’ assistant principal was Greek and she used to
call him “Black Greek.”
I wasn’t surprised that the day after he was
killed, all of the children were at my apartment. The principal
called and said, “Mrs. Jones, I heard that all of the students are
at your apartment and I understand, but you let them know that they
have to get back to the school.” So many children came to Lazarus’
funeral. He was so popular, even at such a young age—13. He had a
lot of friends that loved him.
He loved art and loved to dance. He liked
jazz music and he loved to draw. He loved to swim, he loved going
to play golf, he loved going to the movies, he loved Hot Pockets
and vanilla ice cream and those toy boxcars. He liked writing in
journals that teachers gave him. The last entry he wrote in his
journal was called “Where I Want to Be When I Get Older.” I recited
some of his entries at the funeral, but I couldn’t finish reading
the last one. I broke down. My oldest brother came up and read it
for me.
Lazarus wanted to be the president.
On the corner near Budlong Elementary is
Swedish Covenant Hospital.17 When the kids go that way, they can
make a left and go over to the
Albany Park neighborhood. That’s where Lazarus was on the day the
tragedy
happened.
I never knew about gangs being over in Albany
Park. I didn’t realize that until the night of the incident. Some
of Lazarus’ friends said that Lazarus met some little boy and he
started playing with him. I guess the boy lived over in Albany Park
and I guess that’s how Lazarus ended up going there.
He had a 10 o’clock curfew. He always went to
the CVS next door.
He’d buy candy and chips and sell them to the classmates at
lunchtime. That’s how he’d make extra money for his pockets. But he
didn’t come home that night.
I was on the recliner asleep when I got the
knock on the door. My bell didn’t ring, so I was like, “What’s
going on?” I opened the door and the police officer said, “Are you
Lazarus’ mom? I need you to come with me.”
I said, “What happened?”
“Your son has been in an accident.”
I told him that I didn’t have a ride and that
I was on bed rest because I was pregnant. “Can you please take me?”
I said. And he did, but he didn’t tell me anything. The car was
really quiet. No one said anything.
When I got to Children’s Memorial Hospital,
they put me in a wheelchair and pushed me into a family room. I
knew it was serious when they put me in there. It was a nice little
room. Private. No TV, just chairs.
The nurse told me to call my immediate
family, and I knew something was wrong. The detectives and the
nurse came in and everybody was talking to me. The nurse said, “You
want to go see how he’s doing?”
I said, “No.” I couldn’t go in there. All I
was thinking was this: I was in a wheelchair, I was pregnant, I did
not want to go into the room by myself because I did not feel like
I could handle whatever I had to look at. I was horrified. I felt
numb. I was thinking I was in a dream.
I called Antonio’s mom, my sister, my best
friend and my brothers. I still didn’t want to go into the room
first, so they went in and they said, “Pam, it looks really bad.” I
was just crying all over the place. But then I said, “Okay, take me
in. I have to go in.”
What happened was his injuries were so bad
that he actually died on Lawrence Avenue and Troy Street in Albany
Park. They found Lazarus in the fetal position. At the hospital,
his blood was coming out of his ears and his rectum, and he was
brain dead.
I had just lost a sister a year-and-a-half
earlier to breast cancer and her face was so swollen. You know,
like a Cabbage Patch Doll. I saw my son like that. I was like, “No,
stop! This is not how Lazarus looks.” All of his injuries were on
the left side. He had a black eye, because they kicked and beat him
with a hammer.
I was holding Lazarus’ feet and they were so
cold. I was telling him that everything would be all right.
The nurse came in and said, “We’re going to
stop the machine.” I said, “No! No, absolutely not! I want Lazarus’
heart to stop on his own.”
So we waited. And he had a strong heart,
because I always said he had my heart and my hair and my eyes.
It had to be three or four in the morning.
His heart finally stopped and his spirit went away.
There were actually three killers. The night
of the incident, Lazarus was out with two of his friends. The
detectives said that Lazarus didn’t run, because he had no reason
to. But Lazarus’ friend recognized the men. He said one of the men
said, “We’re going to fuck him up.”
So his friends ran. I’m not mad at them. They
were little kids; they were just scared. Those guys had weapons.
They came out of a van with no windows. After it happened, one of
Lazarus’ friends went into the Jerusalem Food and Liquor Store and
told the owner to call the police. The owner had seen everything.
After the murder, I actually was trying to get his liquor store
closed down. That’s how furious and angry I was.
There is a bus stop there right where it
happened. A bus came back and forth. Right across the street, there
is a diner and a big old grocery store where they sell fresh fruits
and meats. And all of this stuff was open. Right at that busy
intersection, where everybody just looked like it was a parade when
they saw a child getting beat like that.
Nobody did anything. No one called for help.
They could have saved his life.
Those killers are still out there. There’s a
$10,000 reward and no one has come forth. If the reward was
$100,000, they wouldn’t come forth. You can’t put a price on
someone who wants to keep silent.
But God sees everything. The detectives are
on the case. I will be getting a phone call one day. I will be
going to court like all of the other parents who have lost their
children to gun violence.
On my wall I have a list. The year that
Lazarus died, 2007, there were 32 children. That’s how many
children followed
after
Lazarus. I keep track every time the
news comes on of how many kids there are. It’s devastating.
I’ve been focusing on what we can do about
the murderers walking on our streets. I worry about other people’s
lives and their children. When someone hurts someone, whether
they’re an adult or a child, why can’t they get caught? They’ve
probably committed more crimes. I always ask myself, “How does the
person sleep at night?”
The very next day after Lazarus left, every
news channel was at my apartment. Every news channel you can think
of, even the Latino news channel. I was like, “Open the door. Let
them in.”
I was there, bad breath and all. I got up out
of my bed and sat on my sofa. My little sister, Susie, she talked
when I couldn’t talk.
I really wanted to die. I didn’t want to be
here anymore. But because I was pregnant, I said, “This is for me
to still be here.” I couldn’t harm a child.
When my water broke, I was like, “Oh, my baby
is coming.” I don’t even think I was in the right state of mind to
think that he wasn’t even due yet. I was 32 weeks when it happened.
The doctors said the baby couldn’t come until I was 38 weeks, so it
was six more weeks in order for him to be a full, developed
child.
I couldn’t believe it. I said, “No way.
You’re kidding me, right? No one stays in the hospital this long.”
I stayed at the hospital where I worked. My room was nice and my
co-workers would come and visit me.
It was a miracle delivery. Israel came the
day that he was supposed
to come out. He was four pounds. He didn’t have any eyebrows when
he came out.
I’m a single parent right now. Israel’s
father wasn’t ready for marriage, so I couldn’t be with him. I know
I had a baby out of wedlock, but what can I say? I’m not
perfect.
I’m happy to have Israel. I think God was
preparing me because of the loss of Lazarus. Israel gives me hugs
and kisses out of the blue. Like in the middle of the day he’ll
just be sitting there and come and say, “I love you, Mommy. Hug me
back.”
I’ve never had any of my children give me so
many hugs and kisses. But he will never take the place of
Lazarus.