After her son Nathan was gunned down in the midst of a neighborhood feud, Nancy Wilson ’14 shut herself inside her house for months and cried. Her despair was deep, and her loneliness was paralyzing. She thought about killing herself.

“We all react to grief in different ways, and this was my way,’’ she says. “It was strange. I could barely function.’’ One day she realized she had two choices – give up or find a reason to live. “I heard in my head Nathan saying, ‘You can do this, Ma.’ ’’

He was right. In May, Nancy graduated from URI with a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies, with a minor in thanatology, or grief studies. During her final semester, she interned at an elderly complex in San Diego helping residents with daily activities and deal with the loss of loved ones. With her late son at the top of her mind, the 64-year-old plans to attend graduate school and build a new career teaching young people how to resolve disputes peacefully.

“I decided to make something good out of something that was so bad,’’ she says. “That’s my mission.’’

Speaking out against gang violence gives Nancy purpose. She talks about her son’s death to anyone who will listen: inmates at the state Training Center, a juvenile detention center, school groups, teenagers. Not long ago, she spoke at a nonviolence march in downtown Providence, urging listeners to toss their weapons into a casket on display. Two guns and one knife hit the bottom.

“I no longer have any fear in my life,’’ she says. “People say to me, ‘You’re going to a crack house to talk to kids?’ What’s the worse thing that can happen to me? I’ve already had the worst thing happen, and that’s losing a child.’’