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Steve Wessler teaches at College of the Atlantic on human rights issues and periodically helps people who have been victimized by bias and hate.
I have worked in Lewiston for many years trying to help longtime Americans and new arrivals from Africa and elsewhere to treat each other with kindness and respect. The response was remarkable.
But it seemed that every year or so something would happen that caused people to despair.
Hate crime groups from other states came to Lewiston. The response was 10,000 people from Lewiston came to welcome the new Somali residents.
Things calmed down.
Then on a hot summer evening when Muslims were praying, a white man rolled a pig head into the mosque while men were praying. But people from Lewiston came to Kennedy Park to say no to hate and that Muslims were welcome in their city.
Then there was a murder relating to bias near Kennedy Park. The community again was in turmoil. Very few people were coming to the park. They were scared.
Then people starting talking about the importance of keeping the peace. The father and uncle of the man who was killed went on television to say that violence was not the answer and that immigrants and longtime residents in Lewiston can live in peace. Volunteers came to Kennedy Park to help people feel safer coming back to the park.
The park and Lewison came back again.
But the night of Oct. 25 is different. The numbers of deaths and injured seem too hard to encompass.
I was talking to a Lewiston police officer a while ago. I asked him what was the most difficult assignment he had had. He didn’t hesitate.
Two young brothers went on the ice in a tributary to the Androscoggin River. But the ice broke and both boys went into the frigid river.
The older boy was found dead a few hours later. But the younger boy was found by this officer and a few others. He and others kept on trying to resuscitate him. But there was no breath. He remembered reading about a case when someone went into frigid water and lasted much longer than anyone expected.
They kept trying to bring him back. Still there was no breath. The ambulance came. The EMTs kept on giving the boy heat, trying to bring him back to life.
Three days later, the officers went to the hospital to say hello to the boy. The boy had taken a small breath in the ambulance. When the officer heard this, he cried
No one can bring back to life those people who were killed in Lewiston. No one can erase the wounds and scars of the survivors. Lewiston will never forget what happened that night last week.
But the survivors and all of Lewiston will do what they always do.
Keep going.
