It’s a loss that Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, noted is far different than any other familial loss during an appearance at Weber State University on Wednesday.

“The loss of a child is something very, very, very serious,” she said. “It’s a different type of hurt. It’s a different type of pain. People say they wouldn’t wish it on their worst enemy — I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy — but I’ve had people in my life pass away and I think I did fairly well with accepting the fact that they were no longer here. But by the same token, when I lost my son, the pain is more severe, and you wouldn’t understand what I’m saying if you have not lost a child.”

Fulton was on hand as the keynote speaker for Weber State University’s recognition of Black History Month. For over an hour, Fulton discussed her son’s life, his passing and her road to activism.

Rather than calling Wednesday’s appearance a lecture, Fulton said she’d rather look at the event as a conversation.

“You have to think of me as just an average mom,” she said. “I know I’ve been on television a lot. I know I’ve been to the White House and met the Obamas and met Kamala Harris and, you know, some other people like Beyonce, Jay-Z, all those people, Jamie Foxx, but I’m just an average mom. I just want you to look at me as an average mom doing average things for my average son.”

She said there was nothing that ever could’ve prepared her for what she endured, and continues to endure.

“I could not have taken a class. Nobody could’ve coached me through it,” she said. “It’s just something that happened in life and I had to maneuver my way through the journey that I’m experiencing. And I say ‘experiencing’ because I’m still experiencing this journey, and I believe for the rest of my life, I will be experiencing this journey.”

In a discussion moderated by Dr. Joel Berrien Jr., Fulton was asked about the social changes she has seen in the wake of her son’s killing and what she hopes to see.

“Initially, when Trayvon was shot and killed, it was unheard of — or you didn’t hear of it as much — for somebody to shoot a person of color and they be arrested for it,” she said. “That kind of set a precedent, and what happened with George Floyd and a couple of other people — Jordan Davis and a few others — people were arrested and being held accountable for what they’ve done.”

She said, initially, she had much the same reaction to Trayvon’s death as other mothers would have.

“Just like any other mom, I would just cry myself to sleep — like, literally cry myself to sleep,” she said. “And after, I don’t know, a few months passed and other people were being shot and killed and people were encouraging me to go out and help those people, but I couldn’t help myself. How was I going to stand up for somebody else and I couldn’t even stand up for myself? How could I help somebody else heal and grieve and I was grieving and healing myself?”

But as time went along, she said she found the strength to help others in a similar situation.

“I thought that I had to be this inspirational speaker that, ‘I have to help give you this pep talk,'” she said. “But when I went and I met with some of the moms, I noticed that my presence there helped them. I can’t explain it, but just me being there helped them.”

Fulton said she met with the families of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant and others.

“Just by me being around them, just by me being with them, it gave them some courage and inspiration that they can heal too,” she said.

However, she said she had never expected in her life to dive fully into activism.

“Sure, I’ve gone to rallies before,” she said. “I was a member of the NAACP, but I thought that was me doing my part. … I say a lot it took the death of my son for me to stand up. My son had to be shot down in order for me to stand up, because I don’t believe I would’ve been in this type of advocacy work. It’s so hard and you have to be passionate about it. It’s a lot, it’s heavy and even though I don’t make it look heavy, it’s heavy.”

Fulton said, at first, she was primarily focused on getting justice for her son.

“My primary focus, when I was speaking with the media and when I was on the stand in depositions, it was to get justice for my son,” she said. “My motive was to get justice. It wasn’t to be a speaker. It wasn’t to inspire people — I needed the inspiration myself.”

She said meeting with the families of other shooting victims and her faith helped push her in the direction of speaking out.

“It was God just saying, ‘This is what I need you to do,'” she said.

Fulton said her message is that respect needs to win the day in modern society.

“We have to learn to respect each other, regardless of what’s going on in the atmosphere,” she said. “It’s a lot going on, it’s a lot we’re going through but we still can’t be a product of what’s going on outside. You can’t be a product of that. You have to have your own identity. … It’s not the big picture first, we’ve got to start off with the little things and then we move into bigger and better things, but conversations like this will start the ball moving.”