Trauma in the trenches of gun-weary Chicago
By Trymaine Lee
August, 4, 2014
CHICAGO— Keauna Wise knows death could come at any moment. So she waits with knots in her stomach and tears in her eyes. She’s often breathless, with anxiety that climbs from the bottom of her feet up into her gut.
Death comes often in her neighborhood on the far south side of this city, mostly by bullets. It comes with a bang on long, hot summer nights.
She’s already lost a brother, an 8-year-old niece and dozens of family friends to gun violence. One of her sons was wounded in a shooting last year, and just about two weeks ago another family friend took his last breath in her eldest daughter’s arms after being shot .
