Wife’s house is Eric dream
Sadness he’s not here to enjoy it
Eric Garner is not here to enjoy the home that he and his widow, Esaw Snipes, always dreamed of, but now that their dream has come true, she is determined for him to remain a part of it.
“We wanted to have a home to watch our grandchildren grow up and for us to grow old together. That was our plan,” Snipes said Tuesday at the house she moved into just last week.
Looking out across the porch toward a grove of old oak trees, Snipes recalled a conversation she and her husband once had about their future.
“He used to say, ‘Babe, we're gonna sit on the porch and sip mint julep and watch the grandkids run around and play.' ”
Those plans changed on July 17, 2014, when police placed Garner in a chokehold while arresting him on Staten Island. His final words — “I can't breathe” — became a rallying cry for protesters horrified by the killing of the 43-year-old Staten Island man while in police custody for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.
Snipes received about $1.4 million in an August 2017 wrongful death settlement with the city that awarded $5.9 million to Garner's family.
“His mind, spirit and soul are always going to be with me,” Snipes told the Daily News during an exclusive interview inside the singlefamily home. “I just have to keep his memory alive and keep talking about him, showing the babies his pictures.”
“I have to credit this to my husband,” the 50-year-old widow continued. “He said from day one, ‘I will always take care of you,' and even through death he's taking care of me.”
Snipes also lost her daughter Erica Garner, who became a nationally recognized activist after she was thrust into the public eye in the wake of her father's death. She died at age 27 last December, a week after suffering a heart attack.
“I have this home but it's missing my husband; it's missing my daughter,” Snipes said, surveying the empty home on the peaceful suburban street. “I wish that my daughter was here because all she kept saying was, ‘Mom, you need to get a house, so if anything happens to you, we'll always Eric and Erica Garner with a collection of photographs, memorabilia and letters from their lives before and after they became beacons of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement. She hopes this will inspire her grandchildren.
Despite the joys of being a mother and grandmother, Snipes lives with a pain that will never heal, she said. “The nightmares have stopped, but I cry every night. I can't even distinguish if they're tears of sadness or happiness, overjoyed or overwhelmed.”
"I don't want to be relevant anymore," Snipes said, expressing a desire to remain outside the spotlight. "I just want to live my life, raise my grandchildren and let them see something different than New York City projects and shootings."
To that end, Snipes, who moved out of the NYCHArun Fulton Houses in Manhattan, allowed a reporter to visit her new home on the condition that its location would be kept out of the story.
Her unfurnished dining room will become a shrine to have a place to call home.'
“She's not able to be here to share this with me, but I know she's watching and I know her children are happy and that's what my main goal is — just to be happy,” Snipes added. She and her daughter Emerald Snipes share custody of Erica's daughter Alyssa, 9, and 11-month-old son, Eric Julian.
Snipes decided not to attend a rally held outside City Hall on Tuesday that called for Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD to bring departmental charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo.