Halloween is the season for spookiness. People turn their front yards into fake graveyards, hang plastic skeletons in trees, and carve grotesque faces into pumpkins.
In a recent scarecrow contents in a local park, a dog walker walked skeleton dogs.
This horror decorating can be a way to channel our fears. We live in times fraught with true terror, be it events in the Middle East or in our own country.
On October 25, that terror, true terror, not made up fake terror, hit the small city of Lewiston, Maine. That evening there was a horrendous double mass shooting (18 innocents died in two locations) at the hands (and gun) of a 40 year old man. It was followed by nearly 48 hours of lockdown for residents until it was established that the shooter had taken his own life.
As someone who worked in a community that experienced a mass shooting in 2009 I feel a connection of sorts with each of these communities. I also know that when the national news networks leave the scene, the community is left to deal with its grief.
Back in 2011, my spouse and I vacationed in Brunswick, Maine, which is about 20 miles from Lewiston. It was a beautiful, peaceful area.
The horror I felt on October 25 and the following days was mixed with the good memories I had of that area, including our walk across a bridge with a history tied to the city where I grew up.
I also think of Tampa and the Ybor City shooting of this weekend, a terrible end to a Halloween gathering. Thinking of Tampa also brings back memories of the two years I lived there years ago. Ybor City was where I discovered my beloved strawberry onions.
Gun violence. A national nightmare we aren't waking up from.
This Halloween we ask: Will this be our fate forevermore?
