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Sep. 13th, 2010 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rockinhamburgerFour years ago I was living in an apartment in the city with two of my friends and working Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, at a Subway restaurant about ten blocks from my apartment. I had decided to take a year off to work out what I wanted to do with my life after high school because I'd spent the previous year in a college program I pretty much hated.
There's a lot I don't remember about September 13th, 2006. But there's a lot I do.
It was a Wednesday morning. I woke up at about 9 am, showered, and got dressed for work. I went into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast, and I noticed one of my roommates, and my best friend, Chara, wasn't out of bed yet. I knew her class started at 10, and I thought maybe she overslept, so I knocked on the door to check. I distinctly remember that I stuck my head around the swinging door, and that she told me she wasn't feeling well but she was going to try to make it to her class at 1:00pm.
I left for work.
I don't remember my morning shift at all.
WARNING: Graphic imagery ahead.
I had just finished making a sandwich for a customer and was entering the backroom, when my colleague said, "What the fuck!?" This took me by surprise because my colleague was mild-mannered and quiet, and did not the type to swear during a work shift unless it was warranted.
It was warranted all right. He said, "There's a shooting at Dawson."
I cannot tell you what this moment was like. I imagine it may have been pretty close to 9/11 for many of you. I just stood there gaping at my colleague, barely registering the words he'd just said. I snapped out of it a few seconds later, and we listened intently to the radio in the backroom which was broadcasting a news headline about a shooting that had started at Dawson at roughly 12:30pm. There was not a lot known about the situation; the report was that there were at least two gunmen, many people injured, and some possible deaths.
On autopilot, I walked to my employer's office, grabbed the phone and called my apartment. My two roommates were Dawson students. Chara was supposed to be at school for her 1:00 class. Jesse, I remembered, had class on Wednesday as well.
No one answered. I left a message on our old-school answering machine asking them to call the restaurant when they got home, or to just come down to Subway and tell me they were okay in person.
Then I hung up the phone and tried to work the rest of my shift. I barely remember what happened in the next hour and half. I remember listening to the regular news updates on the radio with tears in my eyes, thinking of Chara, Jesse, Melissa, Charlotte, Krista, and so many of my high school classmates, and countless other Dawson students that I had met through summer camps and volunteer work in the city.
The news reports were so frenzied. They kept saying, "We don't know what's going on, but we believe there are two gunmen in the school. There are many injured people, rushed to the hospital; we're waiting for more information."
All I could think was that TWO GUNMEN had come into a college I had visited on several occasions in the last couple years, opened fire on the students there, and my friends were dead. I was sure of it. I imagined myself having to tell Chara's and/or Jesse's parents that they hadn't come home. I just played all these worst-case scanerios in my head, terrified.
I was doing this all while I made people sandwiches. I remember this one customer. I was trying to pay attention to what ingredients she wanted, but I was listening for any news on the radio, distracted, and finally I told her, "I'm so sorry, I'm relaly distracted," and she said, "Oh, it's perfectly all right, I completely understand," and she gave me this tender smile, and I knew she got it.
I remember another customer that was treating me like shit. She wanted something very specific, which we didn't have, and kept saying we were using false advertising to have a sign of the chicken sandwich but only have the 2.99 deal on Sundays. I remember giving her a Death Glare and walking away into the backroom and telling my colleague I refused to deal with her. I was in no mood for any bullshit. I let my colleague get into it with her.
Shortly after that Chara came rushing into the restaurant. She had gone partway to school, arrived at the metro station to find a classmate of hers heading in the opposite direction, who told her about the situation. So Chara went home. When she got there she found Jesse and some of his friends sitting around the living room, talking about what was going on. Jesse told Chara I had called to check that they were okay, and that's when she took off to the restaurant.
When she walked in I was standing at the sink with the backdoor open, which gave me a perfect view of the front door. When she walked in I ran to her, threw my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder in relief. I'd been so terrified. So terrified.
She told me Jesse was all right, which was also an enormous relief, but that left us with no idea as to all our other friends. I looked over at my employer, who just waved me away and said, "Go on. It's so quiet."
I'll be ever grateful to my employer for that act of kindness.
Chara and I took off down the street toward our friend Charlotte's house. We arrived there in record time and knocked on the door. Charlotte's mum answered the door and invited us in with giant, comforting hugs. She said Charlotte had called and left a message saying she had gotten out of the school and was going to make her way home.
Charlotte's mum made us cheese and crackers with apple sliced, set us up in front of the television with the breaking news report, and we started calling around trying to find out if everyone was okay.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was a bit of a whirlwind. I made so many phone calls that day, checking with my friends to see if they'd heard from our mutual ones. Everyone I checked in with gave me good news, and every bit of good news made me breathe a little easier.
When Chara and I got home for good later that night (after I visited my mum at work), there was a message from Charlotte.
If you've never had to listen to one of your best friends calling to say she's all right, in a voice that trembles uncontrollably over every word, I really hope it stays that way. When I called her back she told me she had been in the building during the shooting. She was in the hallway, headed to her next class, when she heard the first gunshots.
The next several days were just like that. I had many a phone conversation with friends who were supposed to be there that day but had skipped for whatever reason, or friends who had been int he building but thankfully got out safe.
The story trickled out by the following day. There'd only been one shooter. There were 19 people in-hospital, being treated for gunshot wounds, and one death. They did not know the identity of the person who'd been murdered, but they could confirm that it was a girl who had died.
The conversation that broke my heart was the one I had with my best friend Anae; I've known her since I was five. She called me the night after the shooting to tell me that the girl they kept mentioning, the girl who was shot and killed the day before, was an old friend of hers, someone she went to the first year of high school with.
I listened to Anae crying over the phone, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know this girl, but I felt like I did.
Anastasia De Sousa was shot and killed on September 13th, 2006, simply because she went to school that day. She wanted to learn. She, like so many of us, had a yearning to pursue a higher education. She was starting her fourth week of studied, having graduated from high school only three months before. She was 18 years-old. She had a younger sister and a younger brother. She had a mother and a father. She had friends. And now she's dead.
I am forever changed because of that day. You may know something about being forever changed bby events that were out of your control. I have a feeling you know what this feels like. But when you hear people talk of school shootings, of Columbine and Virgina Tech, you might not think of them in personal terms.
The city of Montreal has suffered through a whopping four school shootings. If you want to be thoroughly horrified, Google 'Montreal Massacre' and find out what some of what it's like to grow up in a city where we remember that on December 6th, 1989, a man walked into Ecole Polytechnique, separated the men from the women, lined the women up along the wall and shot each one dead. I know what violence against women looks like; I understand misogyny and sexism to a horrifying, miserable degree. I can't escape it; a classroom of women, just like me, wanted to learn; to gain an education; to have a job and work in their chosen fields. Because they were women - because they went to school that day, they are all dead.
So when the media talks about school shootings, I know that pain personally. It's not just a news story or an event that happened; a school shooting occurred in my city, at a school my friends attended. It's sobering and humbling and scary.
This is a grim day for me. I feel its weight significantly, and I hope you never, ever experience that weight and fear and anxiety and pain.
There's a lot I don't remember about September 13th, 2006. But there's a lot I do.
It was a Wednesday morning. I woke up at about 9 am, showered, and got dressed for work. I went into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast, and I noticed one of my roommates, and my best friend, Chara, wasn't out of bed yet. I knew her class started at 10, and I thought maybe she overslept, so I knocked on the door to check. I distinctly remember that I stuck my head around the swinging door, and that she told me she wasn't feeling well but she was going to try to make it to her class at 1:00pm.
I left for work.
I don't remember my morning shift at all.
WARNING: Graphic imagery ahead.
I had just finished making a sandwich for a customer and was entering the backroom, when my colleague said, "What the fuck!?" This took me by surprise because my colleague was mild-mannered and quiet, and did not the type to swear during a work shift unless it was warranted.
It was warranted all right. He said, "There's a shooting at Dawson."
I cannot tell you what this moment was like. I imagine it may have been pretty close to 9/11 for many of you. I just stood there gaping at my colleague, barely registering the words he'd just said. I snapped out of it a few seconds later, and we listened intently to the radio in the backroom which was broadcasting a news headline about a shooting that had started at Dawson at roughly 12:30pm. There was not a lot known about the situation; the report was that there were at least two gunmen, many people injured, and some possible deaths.
On autopilot, I walked to my employer's office, grabbed the phone and called my apartment. My two roommates were Dawson students. Chara was supposed to be at school for her 1:00 class. Jesse, I remembered, had class on Wednesday as well.
No one answered. I left a message on our old-school answering machine asking them to call the restaurant when they got home, or to just come down to Subway and tell me they were okay in person.
Then I hung up the phone and tried to work the rest of my shift. I barely remember what happened in the next hour and half. I remember listening to the regular news updates on the radio with tears in my eyes, thinking of Chara, Jesse, Melissa, Charlotte, Krista, and so many of my high school classmates, and countless other Dawson students that I had met through summer camps and volunteer work in the city.
The news reports were so frenzied. They kept saying, "We don't know what's going on, but we believe there are two gunmen in the school. There are many injured people, rushed to the hospital; we're waiting for more information."
All I could think was that TWO GUNMEN had come into a college I had visited on several occasions in the last couple years, opened fire on the students there, and my friends were dead. I was sure of it. I imagined myself having to tell Chara's and/or Jesse's parents that they hadn't come home. I just played all these worst-case scanerios in my head, terrified.
I was doing this all while I made people sandwiches. I remember this one customer. I was trying to pay attention to what ingredients she wanted, but I was listening for any news on the radio, distracted, and finally I told her, "I'm so sorry, I'm relaly distracted," and she said, "Oh, it's perfectly all right, I completely understand," and she gave me this tender smile, and I knew she got it.
I remember another customer that was treating me like shit. She wanted something very specific, which we didn't have, and kept saying we were using false advertising to have a sign of the chicken sandwich but only have the 2.99 deal on Sundays. I remember giving her a Death Glare and walking away into the backroom and telling my colleague I refused to deal with her. I was in no mood for any bullshit. I let my colleague get into it with her.
Shortly after that Chara came rushing into the restaurant. She had gone partway to school, arrived at the metro station to find a classmate of hers heading in the opposite direction, who told her about the situation. So Chara went home. When she got there she found Jesse and some of his friends sitting around the living room, talking about what was going on. Jesse told Chara I had called to check that they were okay, and that's when she took off to the restaurant.
When she walked in I was standing at the sink with the backdoor open, which gave me a perfect view of the front door. When she walked in I ran to her, threw my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder in relief. I'd been so terrified. So terrified.
She told me Jesse was all right, which was also an enormous relief, but that left us with no idea as to all our other friends. I looked over at my employer, who just waved me away and said, "Go on. It's so quiet."
I'll be ever grateful to my employer for that act of kindness.
Chara and I took off down the street toward our friend Charlotte's house. We arrived there in record time and knocked on the door. Charlotte's mum answered the door and invited us in with giant, comforting hugs. She said Charlotte had called and left a message saying she had gotten out of the school and was going to make her way home.
Charlotte's mum made us cheese and crackers with apple sliced, set us up in front of the television with the breaking news report, and we started calling around trying to find out if everyone was okay.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was a bit of a whirlwind. I made so many phone calls that day, checking with my friends to see if they'd heard from our mutual ones. Everyone I checked in with gave me good news, and every bit of good news made me breathe a little easier.
When Chara and I got home for good later that night (after I visited my mum at work), there was a message from Charlotte.
If you've never had to listen to one of your best friends calling to say she's all right, in a voice that trembles uncontrollably over every word, I really hope it stays that way. When I called her back she told me she had been in the building during the shooting. She was in the hallway, headed to her next class, when she heard the first gunshots.
The next several days were just like that. I had many a phone conversation with friends who were supposed to be there that day but had skipped for whatever reason, or friends who had been int he building but thankfully got out safe.
The story trickled out by the following day. There'd only been one shooter. There were 19 people in-hospital, being treated for gunshot wounds, and one death. They did not know the identity of the person who'd been murdered, but they could confirm that it was a girl who had died.
The conversation that broke my heart was the one I had with my best friend Anae; I've known her since I was five. She called me the night after the shooting to tell me that the girl they kept mentioning, the girl who was shot and killed the day before, was an old friend of hers, someone she went to the first year of high school with.
I listened to Anae crying over the phone, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know this girl, but I felt like I did.
Anastasia De Sousa was shot and killed on September 13th, 2006, simply because she went to school that day. She wanted to learn. She, like so many of us, had a yearning to pursue a higher education. She was starting her fourth week of studied, having graduated from high school only three months before. She was 18 years-old. She had a younger sister and a younger brother. She had a mother and a father. She had friends. And now she's dead.
I am forever changed because of that day. You may know something about being forever changed bby events that were out of your control. I have a feeling you know what this feels like. But when you hear people talk of school shootings, of Columbine and Virgina Tech, you might not think of them in personal terms.
The city of Montreal has suffered through a whopping four school shootings. If you want to be thoroughly horrified, Google 'Montreal Massacre' and find out what some of what it's like to grow up in a city where we remember that on December 6th, 1989, a man walked into Ecole Polytechnique, separated the men from the women, lined the women up along the wall and shot each one dead. I know what violence against women looks like; I understand misogyny and sexism to a horrifying, miserable degree. I can't escape it; a classroom of women, just like me, wanted to learn; to gain an education; to have a job and work in their chosen fields. Because they were women - because they went to school that day, they are all dead.
So when the media talks about school shootings, I know that pain personally. It's not just a news story or an event that happened; a school shooting occurred in my city, at a school my friends attended. It's sobering and humbling and scary.
This is a grim day for me. I feel its weight significantly, and I hope you never, ever experience that weight and fear and anxiety and pain.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 11:22 pm (UTC)This post made me cry, I can't believe you went through that and thank you for sharing something so personal.