Category: BFC Tragedy

Writing on the tragedy at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, August 2011.

Tuesday, again

Tuesday, again

by Kelly (and the Buck) ♥ 5 Comments

In exactly two weeks, “BFC Tragedy” climbs its way to the top of the list of writing topics on the sidebar of this Vermont blog–from a tiny thing at the bottom, to where it sits now–boldface, beside the prominent category of “Autumn.”

In retrospect, I wish I’d tagged this collection “BFC Healing” instead of “tragedy,” but at the time I never imagined that so much compassion would flow from murder.

Two weeks.

Doesn’t it seem like a lifetime passed since the Co-op mutated from haven to hell in an instant?

Somehow I find myself back here on a Tuesday; and this time it’s definitely easier; though I’m taken aback to see a baby in the cafe.  A baby.

Earlier this afternoon I passed tourists at the corner of Elliott and Main–two moms and a young son looking for a place to eat. I recommended the Co-op; and then wondered if I’d made a mistake.  If I was visiting, would I want to take my kids there?

I’ve left my own kids at home, but my husband has accompanied me again. I watch with tenderness as he approaches one Co-op staffer after another to offer an embrace or a pat on the shoulder.

I feel too shy to do the same, and wish I could wear a button that says, “I gave at my blog.”

“At least go see Tony in the wine department,” my husband says, over a bowl of soup.

Instead I suggest that I come back with cookies or candy–something easier to share than sentiment.

Perhaps the staff has grown weary of compassion anyway, I argue internally.  Maybe they’re trying to move on.  But the truth is that my biggest concern is that they would feel that we’ve moved on–without them.

Whenever I’m faced with uncertainty around connecting with those in grief, I think back to my friend Trish whose 18 year old brother was killed in an accident the summer we all worked together at the shore.  Everyone at the Crab House was heartbroken, but they avoided talking about Tommy so as not to make it harder on Trish.

Finally I asked her. “Does it make it worse when I talk about him?”

“No,” she answered. “I couldn’t feel any worse, and he’s on my mind all the time.”

Maybe it’s that way for everyone at the Co-op. Maybe this tragedy is always on their minds whether we acknowledge it or not.

I wonder how long it will take until I walk into that store and it’s no longer on mine.

Kelly Salasin, August 23, 2011

For more on BFC Tragedy, click here.

(ps. As I was leaving the Co-op, I saw those two moms and their young son, and they thanked me for the “great recommendation.”)

Feeling Worse about Feeling Better

Feeling Worse about Feeling Better

by Kelly (and the Buck) ♥ 3 Comments
Neer, detail, visipix.com

Almost two weeks has passed since the tragedy that took place in our community Co-op, and I hate to admit this, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. Grief continues to arrive in waves, but with the tide of the news receded, it no longer floods my days.

It feels good to be relieved of the burden of shock, but is that truly a good thing? Is surrendering to murder akin to accepting it, to tolerating it, to allowing it to become a norm?

I know that I cannot go through my days somber and distraught, but how can I shop in my grocery store without feeling the bloodshed spilled there? Won’t I be dishonoring the man whose life was stolen when I talk to friends in the aisles as if it never happened?

I’ve only been back to the Co-op once since the shooting, and since I’m going out of town again this week, I can put off returning until September.

Is that a good thing?

Will I ever feel the same about my Co-op? Do I want to?

How do I reconcile feeling better when Michael Martin’s family grieves forever?

It’s not just the Co-op that’s tainted from this murder. My own community of Marlboro is too. Last night I stood under the stars with friends at an annual summer party, but I couldn’t get our neighbor, Richard Gagnon, out of my head.

When I pulled into the pond this morning for brunch, I cringed at the thought of the tennis courts where Richard played with his wife; and later that afternoon, I cringed again, when I thought I saw him walking across the beach with two friends.

Am I afraid of Richard? Of someone like Richard? Or am I simply traumatized by the fact that someone among us carried out such an act? That someone else could?

For the first time ever, murder is a topic at our family dinner table. “Are you talking about Richard?” My eleven year old asks. “No,” I reply. “We’re talking about the other murder.”

The other murder.

How is that phrase spoken in our home?  That we can talk about it at all feels good, because until now it hurt too much to admit that it had crept into our world.

Maybe that is why we all walk down the aisles of the grocery store, or gather at the pond, or under the stars without saying much about the crushing loss we must accept if we are to endure.

Kelly Salasin, August 21, 2011

For more on the BFC Tragedy, click here.

Blame and Hindsight to the Rescue!

Blame and Hindsight to the Rescue!

by Kelly (and the Buck) ♥ 2 Comments

When something as terrible as a murder occurs in a place that we least expect it, it’s no wonder that fear and vulnerability and anguish lead us to blame.

We are human after all, even in Brattleboro.

This tragedy does call into question so many things, that indeed should be questioned:

Why did we grieve the second murder but not the first?

How can we claim to have such a strong community when we kill each other?

What could we have done to make a difference?

What could the Co-op have done?

I felt compelled to write about this tragedy when I discovered that someone I knew had been taken into custody.  I continued to write each day after, trying to make sense of how this happened. As the days passed, the comments grew, and it is the readers who grapple with this question; and I watch, ever so slowly, as grace and grief are replaced with blame. It is my teenage son who labels it so.

“Did you ever see the South Park episode when a house is burning down and the community stands around asking what happened?” he said. “The kids tug on the parents, saying–Shouldn’t we help?  But the parents answer–No, the important thing is to find out who is to blame.”

I think it’s good to tell each other who we blame, for no other reason than to let it drain from our minds so that we are better prepared to help.  But our blame must be conscious in order to be healing, otherwise we will dwell in it at the expense of actually doing something to make things better.

Hindsight makes it easy to blame as is evidenced by the subtext of the readers’ comments I see:

If only Michael Martin had never been hired.

If only Richard Gagnon had been fired a long time ago.

If only the Co-op had done something to mediate sooner.

It is only natural that we want to find someway to escape this pain, and blame is a strong distraction.

Captain Hindsight, South Park

“Captain Hindsight always appears just in time,” my son says, recounting another South Park episode. “He’s the Super Hero who tells people what they did wrong and how they could have avoided it. This makes people feel better even though it doesn’t change anything.”

But the truth is that there is no escaping grief if you intend to heal; and if you don’t, you add more suffering to the world.

Kelly Salasin, August 20, 2011

A poem for Michael Martin

A poem for Michael Martin

by Kelly (and the Buck) ♥ 3 Comments

Last night I attended a benefit concert, thinking that cello and piano and poetry would soothe my weary soul from the events of the past month–from my son’s diving accident, to my best friend’s car accident, to the tragedy in Brattleboro.

I had been writing incessantly for over a week since the shooting at the Co-op, and with my latest post, I felt that I might be finished.  Instead, I found my anguish stirred rather than soothed by last night’s performance, particularly when the poetry of the Romanian poet Eminescu was read.

detail, Dore, visipix.com

Unto the Star

‘Tis such a long way to the star
Rising above our shore
It took its light to come so far
Thousands of years and more.

It may have long died on its way
Into the distant blue
And only now appears its ray
To shine for us as true.

We see its icon slowly rise
And climb the canopy;
It lived when still unknown to eyes,
We see what ceased to be.

And so it is when yearning love
Dies into depth of night:
Extinct its flame, still glows above
And haunts us with its light.

~Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)/translated by Adrian Sahlean

Kelly Salasin, August 20, 2011

(To see the full collection of posts and comments on BFC Tragedy, click here.)

Norway & Brattleboro

Norway & Brattleboro

by Kelly (and the Buck) ♥ 2 Comments
(open clip art)

I don’t typically follow sensational news stories. For starters, I don’t have television. And news journals are too hefty for me–both in size and content.

I enjoy the local paper now and then, especially for the classifieds and the obituaries, but my entire day can be thrown by one sad extraneous story from across the country. I’m hard-wired that way.

Occasionally, there’s no avoiding the news–either because it’s posted all over Facebook–as with the Kasey Anthony saga, or it is so compelling that I can’t ignore it–like the massacre at the youth camp this summer in Norway.

I’ve continued following that story because I know that Norway treats its criminals with greater dignity than others societies; and I suspect that this gross violation of humanity will challenge that distinction.  I hope it doesn’t.

I’ve never been in favor of the death penalty, and never wished death on anyone until the summer when a cousin’s young friend was raped. I remember thinking that it was a good thing that I was not the officer who pulled over the car and found the missing nine-year old girl stuffed under the rapist’s back seat.

I would have strangled that man on the spot; And this realization made me more grateful than ever for our judicial system–in that it doesn’t allow people like me free range with grief.

After the atrocity in Norway, I was heartened to see a quote shared on Twitter by 18 year old, Helle Gannestead, who had been among those attacked at the youth camp:

“When one man can cause so much harm – think how much love we can create together.”

I find the same spirit alive in Brattleboro. Despite the pain that Richard Gagnon’s act has inflicted on so many, the response of this community has been one of true beauty. Though no beauty can replace life that is stolen or take away the heartbreak of those most intimate with the loss, there is hope that something good can come of that which hurts us.

Though I can’t explain it, I’ve always had a heart for those labeled “criminal.” Perhaps this is due to my early steeping in the tender teachings of Jesus, or that as the oldest of eight and later an elementary teacher, I could see that even the most hardened criminal was at one time an innocent child.

There is a quote that I know to be true even though the truth of it confounds me in the face of such horrific acts as rape and murder:

“The real measure of a society is how it treats its prisoners.”

This truth runs tandem with that which I also know to be true–that we cannot separate ourselves from our problems; that there is no way to simply get “rid” of them:  The toxic chemicals that we dispose of leach into our water and air. The children that we abandon in cities grow up to hate us. The elders that we dispose of in institutions become ourselves.  The hurt that we stuff inside one day acts out.

Though we cannot change what Richard did, we are responsible for how we respond–in our community and in ourselves.  Like Norway, I think Brattleboro is up for the challenge.

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever;
but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter;
and in these, the spirit blooms.” Santayana

~

Kelly Salasin, August 18, 2011

For more on the BFC tragedy, click here.

For more on Norway, watch below: