The Dr. Phillips Center Memorial

We headed to the vigil at 4 parking at a friend’s mother’s house and walking.  We went to the Dr. Phillips memorial first.  As I approached, among all the things I had loaded into my overburdened purse I recalled the one thing I should have brought…tissues.  I thought I would be OK but as we approached the edge of the memorial all the sadness and loss rushed over me in a way I had not expected.  

For those of you that have never experienced a mass memorial I will only say that it is overwhelming.  It holds all the sadness of a funeral, the reverence of a grave, and the emotion and ethereal beauty of remembrance.  It is powerful and meaningful.  It evokes all feelings and thoughts painfully at once. It extracts all breath from your lungs and temporarily halts all words from crossing your lips.  It is as if every door of your heart is slamming closed then bursting open all at the same time.

Walking around the memorial was a solemn and solitary experience.  Each of us wandered along silently taking pictures and pausing to contemplate each individual photo with the age displayed by their name.  As sadly young as Akyra Monet Murray at the tender age of only 18, her entire life ahead of her or the mother who stepped willingly between her son and the shooter taking the bullet herself and dying in the ultimate sacrifice of a mother to a child. 

Strewn amidst the piles of flowers and balloons were intimate personal effects presumably left there by friends and family of the loved ones left behind.  Some photos or small trinkets that somehow meant something to the invisible soul that laid it at this quiet altar. I think those items were the most poignant to me and affected me deeply.  Although I had not personally lost anyone close to me that terrible day so many had and they were grieving an unimaginable loss.  That thought did not escape my mind for a single brief moment.  There were also other mementos left along the way.  Messages of hope and love, posters, flags, candles…all meaningful to the individual who reached out their hand at that moment in time to offer their respect, pay their homage, offer hope to themselves and to humanity, to honor the dead and to remind the living of all that has gone before and all that we can yet be.

The entire lawn in front of the Dr. Phillips Center was covered in areas of remembrance including messages left in the sand.  We spent quite a bit of time here in the hot sun of the afternoon before beginning our walk to the lake shore through the downtown.  There, as we waited on a street corner for the signal to walk a guy passed us with a huge gorgeous American flag in rainbow colors.  Leslie loved it so much she asked if we could take a picture and he stopped to let us and we began talking.  His name was Mikey and after a short conversation he said he was from Rhode Island which was a commonality with Dawn.  Soon everyone was hugging and chatting.  You would never have this experience just out on the street under regular circumstances.  And I loved that. It was beautiful and spontaneous.  Such a brilliant soul we had the chance to cross paths with in that one moment in time.

We stopped at a 7-11 for a quick snack and beverage on the way to the lake and this was my first glimpse at what I was about to experience. The store was packed and the line was long and there was one cashier but no one was complaining or huffing and everyone was kind and thoughtful to each other and chatting openly.  I remember thinking this was not your everyday experience at 7-11…except that I wanted to eat everything I saw (but didn’t…yay me!)