Maybe there is one good thing to take from all of this — good as in instructive; good as in hopeful and inspiring. RowVaughn Wells, in the midst of incomprehensible loss, is showing us exactly what her motherhood looked like. She’s doing it by revealing the depths of her great grief, but also the depths of her great faith, which is helping her (and us) to find some meaning in Tyre Nichols’ death: “I do know that he was a good person. And that all this — all the good in Tyre will come out and so that’s what keeps me going because I just feel like my son was sent here on assignment from God,” Wells has told reporters.

“His assignment is– was over. It’s over,” Wells said. “And he was sent back home. And God is not gonna let any of his children’s names go in vain. So, when this is all over, it’s gonna be some good and some positive because my son was a good and positive person.”

It is striking to me that Wells’ first comments were calls for peace — that the inevitable (and justified) demonstrations that must come will not create more victims for more mothers to mourn over and remember only in echo. She pointedly noted that the men who killed her son had “brought shame” on their own families. That’s a very “mothering” thing to say — it demonstrates that she has a true and instinctive mother’s heart.