People from the Spokane area gathered in several places last night (Wed) to remember the school shooting in Freeman.
At the end of a long day, about two dozen people, many of them young people, sat together in the quiet of the huge St. John's Cathedral on Spokane's South Hill. Several leaned forward or knelt in prayer.
Three priests led a short ceremony. After a few scripture readings, Father Nic Mather gave a homily in which he tried to make some sense of the day.
“We will never be able to fully come to grips with why this act of violence has happened in our community. We will never be able to fully come to grips why our children have been made to suffer from horrific violence. We will never be able to fully come to grips with why one child has lost their life to that act of violence," Mather said. "And yet we have to do something in the face of this event. We have to respond and so we gather.”
After a final blessing, people came up in twos and threes to light candles for the victims of the shooting and their families and for the whole community. There were tears, there were hugs. A young woman in pink came forward for a private meeting with one of the priests. After about a half hour, people began to leave. It wasn’t a long vigil, but at the end of the day, it may have been just what people needed.