On the day she lost her son, Marlina Bowdery knew her life had been changed forever.
The Memphis-born mother remembers the late-night call she got after 32-year-old Timothy Montgomery was killed in a shooting in downtown Lincoln on March 15, 2020, like it was yesterday.
“They said that my son was shot … they said that he (was) dead, so I’m hearing people crying on the phone,†Bowdery said.
In an instant, her entire world was turned upside down. And yet, as grief became an all-consuming force in her life, it ignited a new sense of purpose: Guiding grieving mothers through the unspeakable agony of losing children.
“It’s a pain that can’t no human being ever deal with,†Bowdery said. “It’s no words that can describe the type of pain (grieving mothers) go through on a daily basis.â€
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By expressing her grief loud and proud and sharing the lessons she’s learned along her three-year journey, Bowdery hopes to help other mothers know that they aren’t alone while honoring the memory of her late son.
Although it would take a year before she could bring herself to begin that mission, the Lincoln-based nurse, author and restaurant owner has since self-published an autobiography, a magazine sharing grieving mothers' stories and a collection of poetry by her late son. Another book on navigating the struggles of maternal grief is on the way this month.
She also co-founded a nationwide community of grieving mothers in 2021 through a Facebook page called Ҡthat has 45,000 followers and counting.
“I’m learning how to turn my pain into purpose,†she said in an introductory  for the page.
A major theme of the page is a focus on how society perceives the struggles of grieving mothers and often imposes unattainable expectations on them to “move on†from the loss of their children.
'A breath of fresh air'
Melissa Murphy, a Lincoln native who moved to Colorado in 2015 with her husband and five children, understands that feeling as much as any mother. She lost her two youngest, 5-year-old Sophia and 7-year-old Noah, when they were stabbed to death by her eldest son, 19-year-old Malik, in their Colorado Springs home on October 17, 2017.
She compared the emotional agony she’s endured since then to that of a traumatic brain injury.
“Everything looks different, food tastes different, colors look different, the world smells different, and I look at everybody so differently,†Murphy said through tears. “It is a full body experience, everything within me grieves; every muscle, every tissue, every cell.â€
She’s carried that weight for six years, with help from a few, including a close friend, Rachel, who had lost her mother. But no one has affected her quite like Bowdery has since the two met through a mutual friend in 2021.
While her family’s horrific story filled the headlines and TV screens for a few months, when public interest waned, Murphy said she felt pressured to move on as well. With Bowdery, she found the space for acceptance she’d been craving for years.
“She’s really been gifted with the tenacity to want to speak for all of us,†Murphy said. “To meet Marlina was a breath of fresh air for me, and to help validate that I can still feel this way three years later, and now here I am five years later and yes, I can still feel this way.â€
The content on Bowdery’s Facebook page ranges from affirmational quotes to short videos and livestream events. All of them provide a forum for mothers to connect and share their trauma.
The success of the community, which Murphy has been witness to since its early days, has even inspired her to create her own blog, titled “,†that maintains a similar format but brings to the forefront Murphy’s own personality and unique perspective. The two pages often share each other’s content.
“Our delivery and everything is different,†Bowdery said of Murphy’s style. “She’s able to speak to those mothers who lost multiple children … it’s important for people to understand that our faces are different, our grieving process is different, but we still come together under one umbrella.â€
Murphy said the effect that her friend has had on changing her life has been nothing short of a godsend.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that Marlina was an answer to a prayer,†Murphy said. “She became an answer to me at the right season at the right time in my life.â€
Road map to griefÂ
Murphy wasn’t the only one to speak of Bowdery’s appearance in her life in spiritual terms.
LaTanya Davis is a mother of four from Decatur, Alabama. She lost her eldest child, 25-year-old De’Ja Bolden, after an obsessed friend stabbed the young mother multiple times in front of two of her children. Davis' youngest daughter, 22-year-old Ade’Ja Bolden, died from broken heart syndrome in October of the same year.
“I didn’t even have time to grieve De’Ja before Ade’Ja died,†Davis said. “I used to wake up in the morning and be mad at God because I woke up and my kids didn’t. … I wanted to know why.â€
That changed the day she met Marlina in early December 2021. She said she’d been alone in her home, crying and asking the Lord for answers, when she felt a sense that the time had come to talk.
Soon after, she received a reply from Bowdery in a Facebook thread for grieving mothers that she’d commented on, ultimately resulting in a three-hour phone call between the two.
“On that day, I met one of my best friends,†Davis said. “Marlina has helped me to get to where I am in my grieving process. … It’s like she gave me a map to grieving and everything that she told me would happen, happened.â€
Since then, Davis has started a nonprofit based off of her middle name called SEVEDA, short for Supporting Each Victim Encountering Domestic Abuse. She’s even talking to a young woman who lost a daughter in a similar manner to her own.
“I’m trying to let her know the steps that Marlina helped me with,†she said.
Through understanding the overall process of grief, Davis said she’s found validation in many of the feelings she’s experienced, making her feel normal at times when the world made her feel like she was going crazy.
Lack of understanding
Tina Mosley knows firsthand what can happen when maternal grief is misconstrued as mental illness.
After losing her 28-year-old son, Marcus, to a shooting on Sept. 29, 2020, in Burlington, North Carolina, Mosley was locked in a psychiatric ward for a week when a psych evaluation deemed her to be a danger to herself because she expressed a desire to die to be with her son.
“Just because we don’t want to live without our child doesn’t mean we’re going to take our own life,†Mosley said, adding that she’d also tried therapy after being released but found no lasting results. “I just think having someone like-minded who’s been in your shoes would be beneficial.â€
It’s for that exact reason that Bowdery has been working toward earning a grief counseling certificate, after failing to find any counselors with the same experience.
“They have never lost a child, so how can they give me any words of advice; why should I listen to them?†Bowdery said.
Mosley said that a major disconnect between grieving mothers and psychiatric professionals, and even much of society, is that most haven’t experienced what they have, a sentiment echoed by Murphy. Too many, Mosley said, are focused on a problem-solving approach.
“I think what people got to understand is that you cannot fix (maternal grief),†Mosley said. “I think we’re not the ones that need fixing, it’s the world that needs fixing; they need to understand that when you lose a child, it’s different.â€
That disconnect extends even to family. By the time she found Bowdery’s page last year, the Charlotte native had found herself increasingly shut off by some members of her family, including being unable to see her late son’s child, who was born seven months after his father's death.
Much of her family, she said, would rather not discuss his death at all, and have grown weary of her grief.
“They won’t talk to me about it,†Mosley said. “Even when I’m in what I consider to be my best moment, they won’t talk to me about anything.â€
That’s never been the case with the community that Bowdery welcomed her into last year. Mothers refer to their lost children by name, share the details of their loss, and the pain they experience daily. All of it, she said, comes without judgment.
At a time when she’s pushed many people away, struggled to complete basic tasks and hasn’t worked since the death of her son almost three years ago, Mosley said having a community behind her and a friend like Bowdery has been priceless.
“My son is on my mind all the time but one thing about it, I can always call Marlina and she always picks up that telephone,†Mosley said.
Always advocating
Sitting in the living room of her southeast Lincoln duplex, Bowdery proudly displays a gallery of artwork depicting her deceased son that she’s composed over the past three years.
The pieces, she said, reflect her continued dedication to keeping her son’s memory alive in the same way that her advocacy work does, turning pain into purpose.
“When I’m doing this, it’s me mothering Tim,†she said.
She’s found herself having an even greater impact along the way. At the start of this new journey in her life, she said she felt completely alone. Now, she's among so many other suffering parents, coming from all different backgrounds and at various points along their journeys, but finding their path to healing together.
With her restaurant, M and J’s Southern Style Food — the last place she saw her son alive — set to reopen soon, Bowdery is forging her own path ahead.
Even though his death still weighs heavy, Bowdery can’t imagine getting this far without her son.
“My son taught me to be what I am right now today,†Bowdery said. “He always defended other people … so I always advocate for people, I don’t care who you are.â€