When death comes naturally, there is time to set everything to order. Wills are prepared, goodbyes are said, and loved ones put to rest in long-purchased cemetery plots.

But when that death is violent, family and friends are left to grapple with the senselessness of the loss and the unbearable awareness of a loved one's suffering. There's shock, disbelief, guilt, sadness, and occasionally, remarkable forgiveness.

A mob allegedly killed Latasha Shaw while she was trying to protect her 14-year-old daughter. James Slater, a community leader and caretaker of his disabled mother, was shot to death, allegedly by two young men for cell phones, an iPod, and a small amount of cash.

This is what happens to family, friends, and a life's work when someone loses his or her life to violence.  

When Latasha Shaw died on September 29 - ambushed in the street - she left the papers for the house she hoped to buy lying on her dresser. The gift for the old-friend's baby shower she would've attended that night was there, too. Also abandoned were Latasha's dreams of going back to school. She wanted to get her GED and become a chef.

These are all symbols of a life's momentum abruptly arrested - as if this 36-year-old mother-of-four simply left the room to return presently.

"As we age, we develop a common-sense understanding of how the world is supposed to work, says Frederic Reamer, professor of social work at the Rhode Island College School of Social Work. "We know that death is a sad part of life. But this is so disconcerting, so extraordinary. The reaction is, ‘It's not supposed to be like this.'"

 Latasha was the adhesive that held her young family together. Separated from her husband, she was the family's emotional and physical center - its primary financial support. After her death, her four children were forced to live in three different homes, and her sister - they were tight as twins - sat by the phone for weeks, hoping Latasha would call.

When they called us, screaming: "These grown women just jumped us!" we went to pick them up. My sister was calling the police on the phone, describing the house, when they ran off the porch and attacked us.

Latasha and Charnette Grayson were born about two years apart in Rochester, but the sisters spent part of their youth living with relatives in South Carolina. Latasha lasted only a year. A rural life, it seems, was not for her.

"We had to get up and go to the farm. So she was not game for that one!" Charnette says.

Latasha came back to Rochester and became pregnant with her first child, a boy, at age 14. A year or so after Vincent Miller's birth, Latasha went to work as a cashier in the cafeteria on the University of Rochester campus. She was still at the UR when she died, more than 20 years later.

"You always knew when Tasha was around. She was always the center of the conversation," says Tim MacTurk, director of operations for dining at the UR. "She was fun-loving. She and I joked around a lot."

Latasha was a union delegate representing dining workers at UR. When she died, the union and the university were in contract negotiations. The negotiations continued, but with Latasha's chair at the bargaining table empty, in her memory.

Latasha was straightforward, strong, and never left you wondering what was on her mind, her sister says.

"My other sister would say, her tongue is lethal," Charnette says. "She ain't gonna tell you what you want to hear. She tell you what you need to know."

But she balanced that with a fierce protective streak when it came to friends and family.

"She always defended me, took care of me. She never made me feel like I was doing something right if she knew I was doing something wrong," Charnette says. "Me and her just always been together. You never, ever see one without the other. They say, ‘Well, where's Charn at?' She say, ‘On her way.' Or if they see me first, ‘Where Tasha?' ‘She on her way.'"

It just happened so quick that by the time the police turned the corner, she was already down. It wasn't more than five minutes. Not even that long.

Latasha Shaw spent the last moments of her life on her knees, near the intersection of Dewey Avenue and Driving Park in the city.

Latasha and Charnette were coming to the aid of Latasha's daughter, Jasmine, 14, after Jasmine and a friend were allegedly attacked by a mob of young girls, some boys, and adult women. Some of the attackers allegedly fled to a nearby house. Latasha and Charnette were trying to find the house - to report the address to police -- when an even-larger mob, allegedly armed with hammers and knives, swarmed them.

"We turned around to run," Charnette says. "It was a lot of them. I was fighting them. It was me and her."

Latasha bent down to pick up her dropped cell phone, Charnette says, when someone threw something that knocked her back down.

"That's when I see the guy grab her hood over her shirt," she says. "I can see him outta the corner of my eye, but I was already fighting somebody."

Watching were Latasha's children, the youngest, Tahjmir, only 6 years old.

"He stayed with me this weekend. He got in bed and just cried and said he wants his mommy," Charnette says. "He understands a little bit. He knows she's not coming back right now. He thinks she's coming back later."

More than two months have passed, and still no arrests have been made in Latasha's killing. The investigation is ongoing, and police are trying to make sure they have enough evidence to prosecute once an arrest is made, says Officer Deidre Taccone, spokesperson for the Rochester Police Department.

The denial of swift justice is frustrating to Latasha's family and others, including City Councilmember Adam McFadden.

"Arrests have to be made so justice is served," McFadden says.

My sister was still on her knees. My sister never got up off her knees. She was already done. It was the way she died. To die out there, in front of all your kids, your nieces, your nephews, the bus driver, people turning the corner....

Latasha's family is fractured. Daughters Jasmine and Jaeyona, 10, went to live with their father in North Carolina. Tahjmir stayed in Rochester with his father. The oldest, 21-year-old Vincent, lives on his own in the city.

"They're doing pretty good," says Latasha's mother, Betty Grayson. "I told Jas's father to put her in counseling, because she thinks it's her fault. She was with her when she died, so she thinks it's her fault."

The children's lives are forever transformed, Grayson says.

"Jas is used to doing things with her mother: going to the movies and doing things with her cousins - staying at each other's houses. It's not going to be the same for them. They're especially going to miss their brother."

Charnette would like the children to come live with her, but she doesn't know if that's possible.

"We always said we'd take each other's kids, but we forgot about the daddies," Charnette says.

Jasmine needs to talk to her aunt every day, Charnette says, just to be able to sleep.

"I know them better than anybody," she says. "They need to be together. Tahjmir needs to be with his sisters."

For Charnette, the reality of her sister's death has yet to sink in.

"Every morning, I still got all the phones near me 'cuz I hope that she calls me," Charnette says. "I want to hear her voice. I really can't believe they took my sister, my best friend, my heart."

Latasha's family is trying to keep up a sense of normalcy. They dressed Tahjmir as a Ninja Turtle for Halloween and took him over to his grandmother's to make candy bags.

"It's gonna be a process," Charnette says. "Our kids was used to me and her, me and my sister. This tore my family apart."

You couldn't even see that she was bleeding, until I started pumping on her chest. Then you started seeing the blood. When I turned her over, she had two butcher knives under her. It was like, "Charn." I just heard her say my name. And she wasn't moving.

What is that process to which Charnette is referring? It's tough, experts say, to generalize. But immediately after such a profound trauma, you can expect disbelief and guilt, gradually fading to sadness, grief, and a deep sense of loss.

"That they watched it take place is probably the most acute of all," says Alejandro del Carmen, associate professor and chairperson of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Texas at Arlington. "It happened while they were watching. Typically, they're going to be looking for signs that mom is still alive."

The children's immediate need is security, both physically and psychologically, del Carmen says. They need to be reminded every day that they're safe, he says.

They also need the basics, like clothing. Part of the proceeds from a memorial fund established in Latasha's name will help provide for the kids.

Emotionally, physically, financially, the children's caretaker is gone, Reamer says. "The hole in their lives is profoundly deep and profoundly wide."

It's a moment-to-moment feeling of loss, he says. A child may get up in the morning and still be shocked that mom isn't there. The child may want to share experiences with the parent or seek her counsel. Children want to know who will make them dinner and pick them up from school.

"For a lot of people, it takes a very long time to accept the fact that they can't think that way anymore," Reamer says. "It's a complete sea change."

The children's future, del Carmen says, depends on what kind of individuals they are and the therapy they receive.

"Sometimes, with a lot of therapy and, in some cases, medication, and help of the community and family members, they somehow experience a recovery - as best as one can recover from that kind of trauma," he says.

A violent death is different from a natural death, del Carmen says, because survivors recognize that the violence was senseless. And, he says, violence implies suffering, and no one wants to imagine a loved one in pain.

For children as young as Tahjmir, the permanence of the loss is the difficult thing. They know mom's gone, del Carmen says, but they figure she'll be back tomorrow "because they have no sense of time."

"This has permanently affected this family," he says. "Their lives are forever altered. They will never be the same."

Then I was breathing into her mouth. I told her: Her son here, "All the kids here, Tasha, all the kids here. You got to keep breathing. Keep breathing." Tears just rolled down her eyes.

The march starts in the old Wegmans parking lot at Dewey and Driving Park. A cadence call carries the two dozen marchers: Latasha's family, friends, and members of the community, through neighborhoods, up driveways, and onto porches.

"We fired up! (Can't take no more!)"

"What do we want? (Justice!) When do we want it? (Now!)"

"Stop the violence! (Stop the killing!)"

They're slapping fliers into doorways and into passing hands, urging anyone with information on Latasha's murder to come forward. The marches went on for six weeks following Latasha's death.

"We will march on every street, pound on every door, until justice is served!" Councilmember McFadden says.

The tone of the march is upbeat. They sing, laugh, and tease each other.

"We serious, but at the same time, we're happy," Charnette says. "We feel like we're doing something positive. It feels good."

The 30-minute nightly march concludes at Latasha's memorial at the corner of Dewey and Driving Park. The memorial is rich with stuffed animals, candles, religious icons, and expressions of affection and sympathy.

"We laugh. And we go to candles, and we're still laughing," Charnette says. "My sister, she was a happy person. Any picture you see of her, she's smiling."

"We're not angry. We're hurt," she says. "We can forgive. The Bible says we've got to forgive."

I said, "Tahjmir right here." She just smiled. That's when the paramedics came. They said she was still alive when she got to the hospital. But when she was laying there in her casket, you could see she was smiling. The last thing, she smiled. She was smiling.

James Slater's story can be found here.