I am called to respond to this latest mass killing. This has become personal. In August 2023, I did a deep-dive visit to my formative years in Lewiston.
We grew up in Lewiston though we didn’t move there until 1972. I turned 13 years old here, in this very house, my hormones fully engaged, where I listened nonstop to 45s and albums purchased with my babysitting money.
It was a charged time, as settling into a new home always is. And I’m not even going to explain the depths of our family troubles that brought us here. Just know that we were reunited with our dad after 3 years. Know for now that divorce, mental illness, and a web of grace were at play. We landed here on the 2nd floor of a large, sunny apartment.
What is oddly comforting is that the owner keeps re-painting it the exact same color. It’s in good repair and the paint job is fresh and neat. I understand white houses getting the same treatment for 50 years. But this color combo?
Ahhhh, Luiggi’s Pizza, two short blocks away. Every Saturday night my Dad would go out carousing, and I’d call in an order of one small, plain cheese pizza and pick it in time for The Carol Burnett Show.
Not a great picture, taking it from the car at the red light about to turn green. No matter, somehow an artist has captured this busy corner perfectly.
Time travel twist: In my Luiggi days, pizza was my game and I was oblivious to any ‘Fergy’ on the menu. On this trip staying with my dear high school friend, Debbie, I found out that ‘Fergy’ was her dad! He asked for a custom sandwich and the rest is history with everyone ordering it.
The Fergy – Created in the 1960s, Luiggi’s signature sandwich, the Fergy, is named for Lewiston police officer Arthur Ferguson, a friend of the Talarico family, who “should receive a pension for conceiving it,” noted The Bates Student in 1974. Ingredients for a Fergy: ham, American cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce, and mayo on Italian bread. Source: Bates College News, 02/25/2021
Here is the high school gym its floor so freshly quaffed, we weren’t allowed to walk on it during our well-organized high school reunion tour.
High school was the most stable time period in my young life. After another breakdown, my dad got practical help to alleviate the financial realities of being a single parent. We moved to a newly built housing development, and he got a key subsidy called AFDC, which boosted his full-time, low paying salary to something we all could live on. And hot lunches! What a concept!
I thrived.
Go Blue Devils!
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In the wake of the mass shooting, I almost cropped out the ‘hope’ part of this picture.
While I know of our resilience, we never escape unscathed when we encounter violence. Not the first responders, not the victim’s family, and not us looking on from further away from another town or state.
We touch a darkness that has us believing we are horrendous creatures, that no part of us is of-god, that we are bound and doomed by some innate evil and animal-ness, and that we are powerless to curtail this. That is the cancer that eats us with every awful incident. We have a collective mental illness that keeps us from using our problem-solving brain.
And can we talk about mental illness? Can we prioritize dealing with it? Social services is an invention we created to help when a person or family is not well. Believe me, I know. My dad worked full time and because of pride and shame at needing help, we were almost lost to each other again. How do you operationalize strategic help in time, when it’s needed? It is not easy. But it is clear that our responses are broken. Background checks are neutered. Mental illness combined with friction-less access to war-level weapons ends, of course, in tragedy.
Let us pray not only for healing our hearts and our neighbor’s hearts. Let us pray for resolve to stop the madness of this time that we live in.
I follow Carlos Whittaker. He’s fond of saying: I don’t stand on issues, I walk with people. He is a Christian man, author, speaker. He calls his impressive community #instafamilia. If there are Maine or Boston area instafamilia, I’d love to make contact. Feel free to use this web page to ping me.
I am going to get quiet now and follow my own advice.
-Wendy
P.S. If you are moved, visit this summary page where you can donate to the families directly affected by the shooting, many now are without their dad.
Nice Wendy!
Very Nice Wendy!
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Thank you Kathleen.
I like this Wendy , well written .
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Thank you Carmen. Your comment means very much to me.
Thank you for this thoughtful, heartbreaking, and also hopeful piece of writing, Wendy. Beautiful pictures, too. I loved The Fergy sandwich, the photo with HOPE on one side and LEWISTON on the other and the river between. And this sentence: “Mental illness combined with friction-less access to war-level weapons ends, of course, in tragedy”. Lewiston is very deeply in your heart (and mine, too), and what you’ve written is a gift.
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Thank you Eleanor. Your words mean very much to me.