From prayer to art: George Floyd in Mary’s arms

The Virgin Mary, mother of all, holding George Floyd. In the days following Floyd’s death May 25 in Minneapolis, the image repeatedly came to Leah Darrow in prayer. It woke her up at night.

Darrow, a Catholic speaker and founder of the Lux app for Catholic women, was horrified after watching the video of Floyd’s death, as he begged for breath while a police officer knelt on his neck. “You’re watching evil right there in front of you,” she said. She took her emotions and desire for justice and mercy around Floyd’s death to prayer, she said, especially her daily rosary. And that’s when the image came to mind. As it continued to bother her, she became convinced it was something she was meant to share. A friend connected her with Valerie Delgado, an artist in Houston, coincidentally Floyd’s hometown, who made the image into art. Delgado titled it “Mama … I’m through!” some of Floyd’s final words.

As he lay pinned on the ground by officers, Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” He also cried, twice, “Mama.”

“I’m a mother, so that just rocked me to hear that,” said Darrow, who has five children and lives in St. Louis. “When I prayed the rosary, I would hear him call for his mother, but I would see the Blessed Mother, just holding him.”

Although Floyd’s personal meaning for “mama” can’t be known, the fact is that he had two mothers, his earthly mother and Mary, Darrow said, whom Christ gave to all, through the Apostle John, on his way to Calvary.

“Maybe this can be a path of reconciliation and peace,” she said. “Mary is the mother of us all, God the Father is our father who has made every one of us in his image and likeness, and we are one family, and we are called to fight for justice, to fight for peace, to fight for unity together. … The beatitudes are the ethics to all of this, and the answer is Jesus Christ himself.”