LEWISTON, Maine — There’s no deadline for grieving, but time waits for nothing.
Not even the hallowed memorials erected in several locations after the Lewiston shooting spree.
Rachel Ferrante directs the Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning, and Labor, set in the old Bates Mill building off Chestnut Street in Lewiston. The day after the city's first snowstorm, she guided volunteers at the two shooting scenes—Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille—as well as other memorials erected in the heart of downtown. They carefully collected the items placed since Oct. 25.
"By removing all of the memorial items now into a dry, safe space, we allow for that continuous process of community healing," Ferrante said.
We each experience things through our own lens. Within hours of the shootings, Ferrante and artist Tanja Hollander were devastated, yes, but the pair said they immediately thought this history would need to be preserved, and that they would work to do so. It's what they do best.
"Art moves us, right?" Hollander asked while pulling flowers out of the snow outside Schemengees. "It brings us joy; it brings us love; it interprets the world for us."
A team of 20 public works employees wanted to help as well, like Reggie Poussard, the department's highway operations manager.
"This is a tight-knit community," Poussard said, taking a moment's break from unloading memorial items. "We all feel the pain that others feel."
Jack Dostie is an equipment operator with the department, and wanted to help despite his own pain. He said he was friends with victims Tricia Asselin and Ron Morin. Morin was shot and killed at Schemengee’s. A few dozen feet from the building, on Tuesday, Dostie salvaged stuffed animals and wilted flowers from the snow. Across town at another memorial site, he also made sure to personally tend to a wooden monument bearing Morin's name.
"I made a point to carry at least one of them into the back of the truck," Dostie said. "I signed it. I didn’t get a chance to get down there [to the memorial] to do it; really just didn’t want to deal with the emotion. I figured I’d be the last one to sign it before it got put in the museum."
Though the museum's exhibits typically carry a fee, Ferrante assured the public that anyone would be welcome to visit the gathered memorials free of charge.
