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It didn’t seem possible as it was happening. The normalcy of a Wednesday night in Maine shattered instantly. People had been killed and injured, but we didn’t know how many. The shooter was still at large, but we didn’t know who he was at first, and then we didn’t know where he was for two days. It didn’t seem possible.
And now, it doesn’t seem possible that it has been six months. Six months since 18 people were taken from their families. Six months since 13 other people were injured. Six months since Lewiston and the entire state of Maine experienced the horror of this shooting and the heroism of those who rushed to help others.
Heroes like Thomas Giberti, who helped save children at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley while getting shot multiple times. Despite his injuries, he was able to walk back into the bowling center in November.
Heroes like Joe Walker, the manager at Schemengees Bar and Grille, who attempted to stop the shooter, and lost his life.
LeRoy Walker, Joe’s father, spoke with the Lewiston Sun Journal Thursday as an event marking the sixth month anniversary of the shooting drew hundreds of people to Lewiston’s Simard-Payne Memorial Park.
“It’s great that they have these events,” Walker told the Sun Journal. “It’s great that they pull people together this way. But it just breaks my heart every time. It brings back every little memory that makes me cry.”
Even as we have grieved with the families and survivors these past six months, we still struggle to completely fathom the depth of their loss and the strength of their grace and resolve. But when LeRoy Walker talks about his heart breaking over and over, when he shares about the way time has passed — or seemingly hasn’t — we expect that he has movingly captured an element of grief that a lot of people continue to feel in the Lewiston-Auburn area and across the state.
“Six months may seem like a long time to some people,” Walker said. “To me, it’s like it happened just yesterday.”
Everyone grieves at their own pace and in their own way. It doesn’t take much to send our memories rushing back to the night of Oct. 25, as families spent agonizing hours and even days waiting to find out if their loved ones were alive. Sometimes, for us, it does feel like it just happened yesterday. And in other cases, the sense of loss is so powerful and enduring that the time before the shooting somehow feels like a distant memory years in the past, rather than months ago. Perhaps that is because, as someone said Thursday, Maine has been forever changed.
“We are all gathered here to remember that six months ago, you were forever changed,” Maine Resiliency Center Advocate Navigator Joanna Stokinger said at the commemoration event. “Lewiston was forever changed. Maine was forever changed. We are forever changed.”
If we are forever changed as a state, then we must also be forever committed to trying to prevent another tragedy like this. That means continued action and reassessment at all levels of government, not just with individual pieces of legislation but ongoing dialogue and compassion. And we must forever honor the people we have lost, not just by remembering the way they were taken, but by continuing to celebrate the way they lived.
Ronald G. Morin
Peyton Brewer-Ross
Joshua A. Seal
Bryan M. MacFarlane
Joseph Lawrence Walker
Arthur Fred Strout
Maxx A. Hathaway
Stephen M. Vozzella
Thomas Ryan Conrad
Michael R. Deslauiers II
Jason Adam Walker
Tricia C. Asselin
William A. Young
Aaron Young
Robert E. Violette
Lucille M. Violette
William Frank Brackett
Keith D. Macneir
They lived with love, kindness, humor, joy, and bravery. They loved their friends and families, delighted in the small things and big achievements. They made bad days better, they were mentors and volunteers, they were the people you could lean on in tough times, they were jokesters, they were selfless, they had big smiles and infectious laughs. And Maine will never forget them.
“As we mark the six-month anniversary of this terrible tragedy, we reaffirm our love and support for Lewiston, for the victims and their families, and for this precious place we call home, and we recommit ourselves to embracing and valuing one another, as imperfect as we may be, as we search for happiness in the short, blessed time we have here,” Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement on Thursday. “Our hearts are still healing, and the road to healing is long, but we will continue to walk it together.”
That healing road will be different for everyone. But no matter what that road looks like, we have each other.
