My cousin's heart was smashed when her son was killed. Gun violence takes more than life.

Amelia Robinson in the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.

Update: Tanisha Robinson, Amelia Robinson's cousin, died on Jan. 2, just days after this column published.

The memory of my cousin's ridiculous laugh danced in my head just before I woke up a few days before Christmas.

It was so joyous that I laid there for a long moment hoping I would hear it in real life after I opened my eyes.

But like that, it was gone.

I believe in miracles, but for my cousin Tanisha, reality is tragically what the reality is. Her body is alive in a nursing home in Cleveland, but doctors say there is only a fraction of a fraction of a chance that anyone will ever hear the 46-year-old laugh, talk or sing again.

Medical science will chalk her state — brain death — up to heart attacks and respiratory issues brought on perhaps by a preexisting condition.

That's only part of it.

Those who love Tanisha know her heart was smashed to pieces when her eldest son — my 17-year-old godson Darryl Smith III — was fatally shot multiple times April 19, 2021 with a gun that should not be on any American street.

I have no doubt Darryl suffered before he died outside of his mother's house that night in Cleveland.

I know Tanisha's pain was next level as the days, weeks, months and years passed with no answers, no arrests and the inability to watch her kid grow into a man.

Grief poured out of my cousin every time I spoke to her following Darryl's death. You could see the sorrow in her eyes and the way she moved.

Tanisha wasn't dead back then, but she was not fully alive either.

Murdered children are not disposable statistics

I am not a mother — a diseased uterus filled with 70 fibroid tumors prevented that despite my best efforts.

As a human being — woman, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, godmother, neighbor and friend — I know that when a child of any race of any age is killed in such a way, he or she is not the only one who suffers.

Studies have shown that the death of a child is followed by more intense grief than the death of a spouse or a parent. I have seen how hard the death of a murdered child hits mothers.

It was there in the moms who welcomed me into their homes during my days as a crime reporter.

They talked to me after I assured them I would do all I could to make sure their gunned-down child would not be betrayed as just another disposable statistic — no matter the perfectly imperfect circumstances of his or her death or life.

I know this from the Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children moms who recently shared their stories with Dispatch readers in letters to and about their children.

Ohio lawmakers should speak to a mother of a murdered child if they do not believe me.

They will find tears that never fully dry. Those tears and that long cover a canvas of hurt.

They can't talk to Tanisha, but I am sure Nichole Rhodes will speak with them.

"Sometimes I feel like the world is moving and I’m standing still," Nichole wrote in her guest column. "I cry every day. I’m so hurt."

Nichole's daughters 17-year-old Kha'Terra "BeBe" Griffin and 30-year-old Shamira Rhodes were both shot at Queen of Hearts Pub on East Livingston Avenue on Sept. 25, 2022. Shamira Rhodes died at the scene. Her little sister died in the hospital only weeks later.

Ohio can do something to stop the bleeding

The August day Tanisha took a turn for the worse, an Ohio lawmaker with the power to do something to reduce the number of dangerous guns that end up on our streets trolled me on social media.

The lawmaker, Ohio State Rep. Brian Stewart, R- Ashville, was ticked that I wrote an opinion piece about the shooting death of 15-year-old Ra'Shawyn Anthony Carter Jr. at Easton Town Center and the ease of which youth get guns in this city and state.

It was a who do you think you are to criticize me type post.

He was ticked that I called out the GOP-led Ohio General Assembly's unending pro-gun violence acts and anti-gun reform roadblocks city have to jump. These actions have made it more likely that guns will fall in the wrong hands.

Police say a 13-year-old pulled the trigger of the gun that killed Ra'Shawyn, a soothing presence for his mother four younger siblings before his life was cut too short.

The lawmaker should have been ticked Ra'Shawyn was shot dead and that yet another Ohio mother was without a son.

I am never surprised when I am trolled on the internet, but I was disappointed that a "pro-life" lawmaker would be so mad that I called out a national sickness taking the lives of children.

Gun violence has surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for children and teens in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Black boys like my godson Darryl, between the ages of 16 and 17, are 18 times more likely than white boys the same ages to be killed mostly by gun violence, according to a JAMA Pediatrics study.

Casting light on gun violence is not a way to get sympathy — though humans should feel empathy for the suffering of others.

Casting light on gun violence is about telling the truth and calling for solutions that will stop the bleeding.

It is not an attempt to make legislators angry — although I think that's an emotion they should feel.

Lawmakers should be angry that children in this state are being gunned down like animals and do something about it. At the very least, they should get out of the way of those trying.

Cites must do more to reduce gun violence and solve homicides. That's an even more daunting task when state lawmakers systematically block every effort to regulate guns that are turning streets red with blood.

It is clear from poll after poll that Ohioans from all political affiliations want reforms like mandatory background checks for gun buyers, training before obtaining concealed weapons permits and safe storage of guns mandates.

I wish the lawmaker who trolled me was in the room with me when I drove up to Cleveland the August day my cousin's condition took its worst turn.

Perhaps the hope I carry in my heart would have toyed with him like it did me as I looked in her eyes praying to see the spark that made her uniquely Tanisha. I sadly saw nothing.

I wish he would have experienced the joy that walked into every room she entered back before Darryl was murdered.

I wish he could see the love she had with her children.

It is no doubt the same as the love he had for his own children.

Tanisha's laughter was with me before I woke up the other morning. That's not enough.

Hopefully one day those who can do something to stop such tragedies from replaying will open their eyes and do something to save others. I do believe in miracles.

Amelia Robinson in the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Guns are the leading cause of death for kids. Ohio must help stop it