End of the year can be painful for those who have lost loved ones to firearm crime, but forming new traditions can help ease trauma
Ramon Price makes sure he’s working on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
He’s a counselor at a funeral home in Oakland, California, where for the past 18 years he’s helped hundreds of families navigate grief, death certificates, insurance and casket selections. About half of them lost loved ones in a homicide, usually with a firearm.
He said the holidays are a particularly difficult time to grieve, not only in the immediate aftermath of killing, but also for years – and decades – to come. Many families cancel their holiday celebrations, while others modify them. He knows because he’s one of them.
In February 2012, his 17 year-old son Lamont Price was killed by gun violence in Oakland. Nearly a decade later, in October 2021, his oldest son, Ramon Price Jr, was shot and killed at age 27 while driving on a stretch of freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Source: ‘Some scars are for ever’: the grief of losing a child to gun violence during the holidays