THE GRIEF NEVER ENDS

Sybrina Fulton, who lost her son Trayvon Martin ten years ago this month, found her painful place in American history.

- Derecka Purnell

HER PAIN UNITED A NATION—that’s the inscription written in gold capital letters across Mamie Till-Mobley’s headstone. She buried her 14-year-old son, Emmett, in 1955 after white men brutally murdered him near Money, Mississippi. She left the casket open to display his mutilated body in the suit he’d gotten for Christmas the year before. Her decision helped catalyze the civil-rights movement and sparked international calls for justice. Till-Mobley became a teacher and activist who advocated in Emmett’s name until her death in 2003.

Sybrina Fulton feels honored when supporters compare her to Till-Mobley. “She’s an icon. She was the example of, you know, a strong Black woman,” she tells me in December. “And I have to say that people expect us to be strong. But the thing about it is we are strong because we have to be strong, not because we want to be strong. There’s a difference, you know?”

Three days before our conversation, she endured another Christmas without her son Trayvon Martin. It is her family’s favorite time of year. They gather, binge films, and talk trash. When Trayvon was still alive, Fulton filled the whole house with ornaments and tinsel. Now she decorates a single room.

Grief can stretch and collapse time like a Slinky. George Zimmerman killed Trayvon more than 3,000 days ago, yet only a handful of holidays have passed. Fulton still hangs a stocking for her baby. “It’s so easy to just be depressed and be sad,” she says, “but I have to remember I have another son, I have myself, I just have to keep pushing forward and just know that I do have a son in heaven. I’m making an extra effort to celebrate the holidays, to celebrate Christmas, his birthday, Mother’s Day, because all of those things remind me of him.”