Mother's Heartfelt Letter To Son's Murdered Father Turned Into Book
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Latasha Grantz was 15 and pregnant when she began to write a letter that could never be delivered. It was a letter to the father of her son.
Brandon Lockett was shot dead on a street in Arnold, on a warm night in August 2003.
"Even though I knew he would never receive it, I just had to let those feelings out, and talk to him, I guess. That was my way of communicating, in a way," she said.
Last year, she came across those pages. Friends told her she needed to turn that letter into a book.
"I chose that picture for the cover of my book because it really captures the pain that I was in at the time. You can see the dark circles around my eyes, and it's pretty obvious how young I was," she said.
The sadness in the eyes of that 15-year-old conveyed a mood of hopelessness.
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"I really opened myself up to people, and I'm not used to doing that," she said of her writing. "So it was hard to expose my heart like that."
Time have changed for the better.
Brandon Jr. is nearly 13. His mom, 29, is happily married with three more children. But one purpose of her book is to introduce her son to the father he never knew.
"And just talked a little bit about who his dad was, and memories that we had. Then another purpose is I want people to know that joy really does come in the morning, no matter what you're going through. No matter what you're facing, it's going to end at some point. And I just want people to know that God's real, he's alive, and he's still working and moving each day. And I'm a perfect example of that," she said.
Her son doesn't hesitate to make his feelings known.
"I love her. I'm proud of her. She means everything to me, almost," he said.
Latasha hopes her book will help others.
"It may start sad, but it doesn't end like that. And it's that way for a lot of people."
