Tanisha Mackin, who lost her husband to gunfire last Saturday outside the City Grill, is all too familiar with the grief of losing loved ones in street violence.

In 2001, her boyfriend at the time was killed, the victim of violence in the city, she said.

Five years later, she and her family buried her cousin, an aspiring physical education teacher who had been gunned down at Paderewski Drive and Shumway Street in what police called a likely case of mistaken identity.

Thursday, she buried her husband, Danyell L. Mackin, the soul mate who took care of her as she battled a serious illness earlier this year.

And Friday, she went to the funeral of her good friend, Tiffany Wilhite, another victim of the City Grill shooting spree. The two had known each other since they were girls.

"I left here because of the violence," the 31-year-old widow said earlier this week, describing why she moved to Texas.

For the last four years, the Mackins had lived in Austin. She moved there first, securing a job at Compass Bank.

A year later, her husband and the couple's son -- Danyell Jr., now 6 years old -- joined her. He also was hired by the bank and became a head teller.

"He was supposed to [have left] Monday morning to go back to work," said his mother, Constance Rogers.

"He was trying to do something for his family, to get higher up in the world," she said.

The couple and their children -- Danyell and daughter Destinee, who was born in January -- returned to Buffalo the Thursday before the shootings to be with family and friends through the weekend.

The plans included celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary last Saturday. Cheryl Stephens, Tanisha Mackin's mother, had a birthday the previous day. And Destinee was to have been christened last Sunday. The visit marked the first time Rogers would see her granddaughter.

Mackin was so excited about last weekend's plans that he bought a new suit.

"He was so happy to come home. ... He was going to wear his new suit to the christening," Rogers said.

Instead, Mackin was buried in the suit Thursday, with a photo of the couple's two children.

Destinee's christening never took place. "She will never know her father," Tanisha Mackin said.

Even though Tanisha and Danyell had known each other since they were 13 years old, their relationship did not turn romantic until 2001. Tanisha's then-boyfriend was killed, and Danyell helped her through a tough time.

"He came by to lift me up and to be a friend. He always had my back," Tanisha said.

"We are opposites. I'm the wild, outgoing one," she added. "He was the laid-back one."

She said she will return to Austin and visit Buffalo only on occasion, especially to take the children to the site where their father is buried.

The Mackins recently went through another tough episode in their lives. While in Austin, Tanisha became seriously ill, family said, without disclosing the nature of the illness.

Her parents, Cheryl and Dale Stephens, went to Austin to be with their daughter and her family when they found out. They stayed for several weeks to provide support, Mrs. Stephens said at her son's funeral service.

Ms. Rogers stayed in contact by phone.

Friday, during her eulogy, the Rev. Annette Hood of Blackwell Chapel in Jamestown, described Mackin as doting and dutiful through his wife's health crisis. He took her to all of her doctor's appointments, made sure she ate regularly -- even though he was not a great cook -- and took on the role of both parents until she became strong enough to resume the household's routine.

Still dealing with the death of her husband, Tanisha also had to make time this week to grieve for her friend, Tiffany Wilhite. The two grew up together. Tanisha even scheduled Danyell's funeral around services for Wilhite. She wanted to be sure she made time to mourn her friend.

"[She] gave me a hug and a kiss and said 'I'll be back,'" Tanisha said, recalling how Wilhite greeted her at the City Grill.

That was the last time she saw her friend alive.

Before moving to Austin, Tanisha, a 2001 graduate of Medaille College, worked at M&T Bank as a consumer lending associate and brokerage operations specialist.

She also worked as a relationship banker at Capital One Bank and ran her own Web business in 2008 and 2009. Called Stylz 4 a DIVA, the online boutique sold fashion accessories, according to the company's MySpace page. She had hopes of opening a storefront and expanding her business. Though the company's MySpace page is still online, the Web site is no longer up.

Danyell graduated in 1997 after studing cabinetmaking at Emerson Vocational High School. He then studied criminal justice at Erie Community College.

Before leaving Buffalo, he worked for the State Thruway Authority, where his father-in-law, Dale Stephens, has worked for 30 years, according to co-workers. Mackin started on July 22, 2002, as a part-time toll collector. He left in 2007 and headed to Austin.

Rogers said she had picked out the name Danielle for her first child because she really hoped for a girl. She had a boy, but kept the name and changed the spelling to Danyell.

"He used to say, 'Why did you give me a girl's name?'" Rogers said.

He must have liked it: He gave it to his son.

"They don't know what they took from me, my son and my daughter," Tanisha said. "They just don't know."

News Staff Reporter Aaron Besecker contributed to this report.

dswilliams@buffnews.comnull