10 years ago, author and CEO of Precis Screening, Sheila ‘Michelle’ Foye, endured something a mother should never have to: On June 15, 2016, her oldest son, DJ, was murdered due to gang violence.
The death of her firstborn inspired Foye to create a vision that turned into an artificial intelligence (AI) 10-minute short film called Christmas Between, a cinematic love letter to grief, motherhood, and faith. It’s a story where loss becomes legacy, pain births purpose, and Christmas becomes the day love comes home again.
“Losing DJ inspired the short film surrounding grief about a life cut short. When we lose people younger than expected, we start to think about what their life could have been, should have been, and would have been,” she said.
Christmas Between introduces 45-year-old Maya Varner, who is an attorney, mother, and fiancée. Varner appears to have built a full and enviable life; however, beneath her success lies the grief of losing her firstborn, Malik, which she never allowed to surface and face.
The conversation surrounding grief, silence, and generational patterns is important to have, she says, because people are getting in touch with their mental health a lot more.
Having these conversations in the present day, she says, opens dialogue, but talking about grief can be a sensitive topic.
“People will talk about PTSD, depression, and anxiety, but people don’t talk about grief. It comes with the territory of life, and it seems people just suck it and tuck it; however, it doesn’t stay inside,” she said. “It shows up in addiction to alcohol, drugs, behavior disorders, or feeling stuck in life.
Losing DJ, she said, created anxiety within her from not being able to eat or maintain a healthy food pattern, to finding herself giving things away.
“Food made me sick, and I had to make myself eat. I felt like it was the end, and I was worried that when I went to sleep, I wasn’t going to wake up,” she said. “I became overly sensitive to losing people, not just like them passing away, but just like relationship-wise.”
Also, Foye says she incorporated AI into the short film because she spent 20 years in programming and project management.
Foye says that in anything she does, she always looks to incorporate tech as a natural addition.
“I’m a tech girl at heart, and I can’t imagine my life without technology. AI provides a means for us to market the film more effectively and ultimately segway us to make a $300,000 feature-length film coming soon,” she said.
AI, she says, is no different than people as individuals, where there is a spectrum of gifts each of us has. We are either overusing it or underusing it, and when we do either, it’s not good, Foye says.
“We need to properly use it, and even if you’re using AI, it’s still your story and life put into this film,” she said. “This AI short allows us to fundraise and beta test among the 10 million people plus who experience grief.”
Foye says she chose the Christmas theme for the film because, after losing DJ, her coping mechanism was to watch Christmas movies.
“We chose the Christmas setting because, in dealing with grief and the loss of my son, I’m still like a toddler in my grief. I literally for one whole year sat in bed with my laptop and watched Christmas movies,” she said. “I treated it like my do-not-disturb time, like this is the one time where I won’t let grief have me.”
Outside of the conversation around grief, Foye also wanted to highlight “Legacy of Wealth” in both financial and cultural terms.
In Atlanta, there’s a reputation for black excellence, entrepreneurship, and financial growth. Foye’s story adds another layer to that conversation: What we carry emotionally, what we preserve culturally, and what we ultimately pass down.
As a girl from College Park projects, Foye says God planted dreams inside of her at a young age.
“When I was growing up, my grandmother paid $3 to take her to the grocery store and back, taking a cab, taking a bus ride from College Park all the way into Five Points,” she said. “I bought my first house at 24, and I took out a $15,000 second mortgage to upgrade the house. That $15,000 should have been used to buy another property.”
Foye says she didn’t have anyone to advise her that way, and nobody in her life was having those conversations.
The financial component is important, she says, because it’s not just money, but you must have the right relationship, and for you to have the right relationship, you must be in the right place and space.
Also, she says cultural wealth is just as important.
“I had DJ when I was 17 years old, then my next child at 19 years old, and many years later had my other children. The things that I was wanting to solve for what my children were, were things I was trying to solve for me, but I needed to be solving for them,” she said. “A lot of that is happening right now because we’re attempting to build bridges for the next generation to come behind us.”
Culture, she says, is about the meeting of the minds across generations. She says she wants people to be forward thinkers and work together to build systems that make it easy, productive, and innovative generation after generation.
For emotional wealth, she says we must learn how to attain wealth without killing ourselves.
“Emotions are important, and for myself, I ran myself down to get the job, to keep the job, to do better on the job. It was a lot of doing and not enough being, which may have made my children feel abandoned even though I was present, or made them feel that they weren’t being prioritized,” she said.
For advice to other mothers and people dealing with grief, Foye says she read a book years ago, which said, “You don’t ask God, why? You ask him for what purpose?”
Additionally, Foye says she receives “God Winks”, like when she gets up in the morning and sees a red bird like a Cardinal, they represent spirit.
“Grief will kill you, but God was clear with me. Every parent wants to see their child grow up to be something, and DJ didn’t get a chance to truly grow up,” she said. “The things that I am doing will represent him growing up, and then God said this isn’t really even about you or DJ, this is about the people that I have you serving.”
This is why this film is important, Foye says: they will introduce an app and podcast as part of the film, providing resources to help people figure out their grief pattern and what they need.
“Some people may want to retreat, others may want people to talk to, so the app will have something for everybody, and then people must figure that out on their own,” she said. “People think grief pulls people together, but no, it actually spreads them more apart.”
In the future, Foye plans to release a full-length feature film based on the AI short film, starring real actors.
“We will raise money to produce the feature film, and it will be out in time for Christmas this year,” she said. “I don’t have any letters of commitment yet from anybody or any actors/actresses, but I feel like Regina King would be great for the primary character, Maya.”
Foye says she has a long road ahead of her with her own grief, but she feels more encouraged by the film.
“I don’t feel scared anymore, and when I think about DJ, I don’t lose my breath. I think before this film, I was afraid to let myself grieve,” she said. “I now understand we can allow ourselves to miss the ones we’ve lost and allow ourselves to still love them. You didn’t lose the love; it just transformed.”
