One Mother Turned Her Grief Into Goodness After The Tragic Loss of Her Son
Rachel Muha has given birth to two children. In the past 20 years, she has lost one and mothered many, many more.
In the early morning hours of May 31, 1999, two young men broke into a house on McDowell Avenue near the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio. They abducted Rachel’s 18-year-old son, Brian, and his classmate Aaron Land, drove them to a hill in nearby Pennsylvania, and shot and killed them. It was every parent’s nightmare— the kind of experience that would leave most people broken and embittered. But Rachel Muha is not like most people. In the months after her son’s death, she did not wallow. Instead, she got to work.
“I had such a strong desire to make sure Brian’s life meant something,” says Rachel, now 66. “Brian’s older brother, Chris, shared that hope at Brian’s funeral. He said, ‘My brother did not live or die in vain. Good will come out of this.’ ”
Soon after Brian’s death, Rachel and her family launched the Brian Muha Foundation and, in a startling twist, bought the house on McDowell Avenue where her son had been assaulted.
“Brian died in May, and in August the idea came to me that we needed something positive to happen there,” Rachel says. At first, the owner of the house told Rachel’s real estate agent that he wasn’t interested in selling. “I said, ‘Tell him it’s one of the mothers,’ ” Rachel says. The owner agreed to the sale and even included the home’s furnishings and appliances.
Though she’d set foot in the home only twice, Rachel was determined that the house wouldn’t become a place of mourning. She renamed it the Divine Mercy House. For the first few years, it was occupied by seminary students. Now it’s also an option for low-income Franciscan University students.
“These are people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to go to school, but they live there free of charge,” Rachel says.
Rachel also began raising money to send children from struggling neighborhoods and broken families—children like the men who murdered her son—to better schools.
In 2005, in honor of Brian’s goal to become a pediatrician, Rachel decided to take a more hands-on role with kids. She launched the Run the Race Club, an after-school program that has provided tutoring, sports, meals, and a place to hang out for hundreds of children from Columbus’s poorest communities.
What started out as a program for second and third graders, held twice a week in a church basement, now has its own center in the South Hilltop neighborhood of Columbus. Rachel has lost count of how many children have spent their afternoons at the center, but over the years it has served more than 160,000 hot meals.
“Some people are under the false impression that it’s enough to give kids in the inner city clothes, food, and tutoring,” says Rachel. “They really need connection with people who will help them establish a life outside of the struggles they face.”
Daniel Houston, 20, first came to Run the Race as a 13-year-old. At the time, he says, it was just a place to go after school and play basketball.
“I didn’t realize it was meant to keep kids out of trouble,” says Daniel, who now works part-time at the center. “Later I began to understand a lot of these people could have been on the street selling drugs or joining gangs. Instead, they were here.”
Rachel’s interest in the kids extends well beyond getting them to high school graduation. Thanks to a recent grant, Run the Race will soon begin offering a trade-skills program, teaching plumbing, woodworking, and electrical skills to kids, beginning in middle school.
Rachel’s staff of about a dozen volunteers spends hours preparing meals, cleaning, landscaping, tutoring, and coaching basketball. The work is often difficult and no one is paid to be there, but they all show up, week after week.
“Consistency is so important,” Rachel says. “We say to these kids, ‘We’re here, no matter what.’ That’s the real work of Run the Race. The donated clothes, sports equipment, and school supplies bring the kids to the center. But what keeps them here is that they know we love them.”
About five years ago, Rachel started a land contract program, with the goal of transforming neighborhoods. Using private donations, the Brian Muha Foundation purchases and fixes up run-down houses, then sells them, at the original price and interest- free, to families that wouldn’t otherwise be able to get a loan.
The monthly payments for the 10-, 12-, or 15-year mortgages are lower than the area’s average rent payment, which means families have enough to stay up to date on their utility bills. Pride in homeownership goes a long way too. Tidy front yards and kids playing outside are deterrents to drug activity.
“When people are proud of where they live, that impacts the whole neighborhood,” Rachel says. “It’s a huge ripple effect. I wish we could buy 100 of these houses a year.”
Though it’s been 20 years since her son’s death, Rachel can still recount those days and weeks in excruciating detail. Brian and Aaron were abducted just before dawn, but it was 2 p.m. when Rachel got a call from the Steubenville Police Department.
“A man said, ‘This is Detective Lelless of the Steubenville Police,’ and my heart stopped,” Rachel remembers. “He said, ‘Your son Brian is missing,’ and everything went dark.” One of the suspects was caught that night, still driving Brian’s Chevy Blazer, and his accomplice was picked up a day or two later. But they both refused to talk, and days passed before Brian’s and Aaron’s remains were found.
“We had to search for them for a week,” Rachel says. “I was constantly praying, asking God to please let me find my son alive, and if we didn’t, to give me the grace and strength I would need.”
The men were tried for their crimes in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Throughout the drawn-out court process and local media frenzy, Rachel says she worked to understand the meaning and the true depths of forgiveness.
“You don’t think it’s ever going to happen to your child, your family. For the first year, I stayed away from the courthouse and didn’t read the newspaper,” says Rachel. “I didn’t want to hate the men who took Brian’s life.”
Rachel spoke at the sentencings of the men who’d killed her son. She told them that there was still time to change. They could turn to God and still have a happy life, even in prison. She is still waiting for the men, now 38 and 39 and each serving a life sentence, to reach out with an apology. If they ever do, she says, “they’ll find a friend in me.”
Older kids at the Run the Race Center sometimes ask about Brian, and Rachel tells them the story. As far as Daniel is concerned, learning the extent of Rachel’s forgiveness helped shape his character.
“Forgiveness is something not a lot of people understand,” he says. “Everything Ms. Rachel went through and overcame changed my perspective on treating other people well.”
Daniel is planning to start college classes in psychology this year, and he hopes to carry a message of kindness beyond the city limits, just as Brian would have done.
“I’ve always had it in me to help others, but to really change the world?” he asks. “That started for me here. Ms. Rachel made me feel like I could do it.”
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