Friends reflect on slain girl at dignitary-packed funeral
CHICAGO – Hundreds of mourners and dignitaries including first lady Michelle Obama packed the funeral Saturday for a Chicago honor student whose killing catapulted her into the nation’s debate over gun violence.
Yet one speaker after another remembered 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton not so much as a symbol but as a best friend, an excellent student with dreams of going to college and a sometimes goofy girl with a bright smile and big personality. They said she was a typical teen who wanted to borrow her friends’ clothes and who never left home without her lip gloss.
And to her mother, Pendleton was the daughter she tried to keep busy so she’d be beyond the reach of the seemingly endless gang violence in the nation’s third-largest city.
“You don’t know how hard this really is, and those of you who do know how hard this really is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Cleopatra Pendleton told the packed South Side church. “No mother, no father should ever have to experience this.”
Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed Jan. 29 as she stood with friends at a park about a mile from President Barack Obama’s Chicago home in the Kenwood neighborhood. Just days before, the band majorette was among the performers during events for Obama’s inauguration. Police say Pendleton was an innocent victim in a gang-related shooting.
Michelle Obama met privately with the family and some of Pendleton’s friends before the service.
Obama, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side, then accompanied the girl’s mother to the open casket at the front of the Greater Harvest Missionary Baptist Church. She put her arm around Cleopatra Pendleton and patted her back as the woman threw her head back and wailed.
Some of Illinois’ most recognizable politicians and clergy were in attendance, including Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
But Pendleton’s family said they didn’t want the day to be about politics.
None of the dignitaries spoke during the service. Instead, close friends, holding back tears, got up to remember her.