After she walked away Josh told me, “That’s so sad, Dad. I don’t feel like eating anymore.”
“Yeah, it was sad.” I looked at him. “Just finish your french fries and drink a little more of your milk.”
Planned Parenthood was just another part of our neighborhood, like the Busy Bee or the Granite, until the demonstrators appeared in front of the clinic. At first their stridency was novel, out of place, but eventually they became an ongoing part of the landscape, something familiar and unremarkable. On weekdays there were always men, never more than three or four, and even on Saturdays, when their numbers swelled to one or even two hundred people, the crowd was still overwhelmingly male. When they sang hymns or prayed together it sounded different than in church, where women’s voices predominate.
On weekdays the demonstrators walked restlessly back in forth in front of the clinic, wearing placards and carrying signs. One protestor, a white man who appeared to be in his early sixties, wore a sandwich sign with a poster-sized blowup of a fetus under large letters that read, ABORTION IS MURDER. The sign extended from his shoulders well past his knees and the fetus in the picture was huge, larger than life. The first time I saw his sign I wondered where he got it, how it was made. How do you get a photograph blown up so big? What did the person doing the enlarging think about it?
I had talked with some anti-abortion protesters several years before this. They were demonstrating in front of a church where I had brought some students from Boston University, where I was the Episcopal Chaplain. The students were wary and hung back, but I was interested in asking questions, hearing more about what the protesters believed, what motivated them.
I asked one woman if being pro-life also meant she opposed the death penalty. She didn’t. “We’re here to save innocent lives,” she told me. “People facing the death penalty are not innocent.”
“I understand,” I said, although I wasn’t completely sure that I did.
Another woman told me she was impelled to demonstrate because she believed life began at conception, and so I asked her if she thought there should be funeral services when a mother miscarries. She didn’t know. She told me she had never really thought about it before.
We were not in Brookline when the clinic attacks occurred, but were driving back from Washington, D. C., where we had been visiting my parents and sisters after Christmas. My wife had flown back earlier to visit a friend in New Hampshire, so Josh and I had a book on tape to keep us occupied for the long drive back. I was focused on driving, Josh got engrossed in the story, and so we were completely insulated and unaware of what had happened in our neighborhood until we arrived back home. I called my friend Kenn who had been house and dog sitting for us to let him know we were safely back.
“You sure missed all the excitement, didn’t you.” he said.
“What excitement?” I asked.
“You’re kidding. Didn’t you hear about it? Someone attacked Planned Parenthood and Preterm, shot a bunch of people, killed two women who worked there. It was the lead story on the national news at 7.”
He described the way police had combed the area for most of the day, both in cars and helicopters, searching for the attacker. “This place was crazy, there were cops everywhere. I walked Sparky right down Beacon Street this morning. We must have gone by Planned Parenthood five minutes before it happened.”
I told Josh what I had learned. He grew quite alarmed, frightened that the killer might still be lurking in our neighborhood. He did not want me to leave him alone for any reason, either to walk Sparky or to buy the milk, bread and cereal we would need for breakfast. He asked about how sturdy the doors and locks on our house were, whether we would be safe that night as we slept.
“Josh, don’t worry, this is probably the safest place in the country right now. Whoever did this is long gone, escaped. He’s probably a thousand miles from here.” My reassurance felt reflexively parental but I believed it. I was certain the guy was far away, that we were safe.
“Don’t leave me alone, just walk Sparky in the front yard if you have to walk him,” Josh pleaded.
Sparky needed to go out and we needed groceries. I wanted to see where it had happened. “Listen, there’s nothing to worry about. I need to go to the Beacon Market and buy some stuff, and I have to walk Sparky. I’ll only be gone for ten minutes, you’ll be completely safe. You can stay upstairs, play video games or watch t.v. I’ll be right back. If you’d like, you can come with me.”
“No, I’m not walking around out there. I’ll stay here, but don’t take too long, O.K. Dad?”
When I got to Beacon Street I saw that across on the Planned Parenthood side there were five or six news trucks parked and klieg lights set up, bright as fireworks, which made the December night seem colder. There were several police cars in front of the clinic, two of them double parked which slowed the traffic down as it narrowed to one lane. A t.v. reporter stood in front of the therapist’s office a couple doors down, talking into a camera. He was too distant for me to hear his words, but I watched as he turned, gestured with his left arm back at the entrance to Planned Parenthood, and then turned back to the camera.
On our side of the street there were no lights, no trucks, no reporters, no police. I tied Sparky’s leash to a parking meter in front of the Beacon Supermarket, bought what I needed, and then untied him and walked home.
The police caught John Salvi the next day in Virginia, where he had shot at another clinic, this time hitting no one. After some negotiations between court officials in Virginia and Massachusetts, Salvi was brought back to Massachusetts and arraigned in Brookline, appearing in court with heavy security, wearing a bulletproof vest.
Salvi’s lawyer announced after the arraignment that the question at the trial would not be so much a matter of what happened, but why it happened, which is a question many people have asked.
Some suggested that referring to abortion as murder, to doctors who perform abortions as child murderers, putting their names and faces on fliers reading “Wanted for Murder”, and comparing the abortions performed in this country to the Nazi holocaust may incite people to precisely the kinds of violent actions that occurred in Brookline and countless other places since then.
Those who oppose abortion have insisted they bear no responsibility for these tragic events. They do not advocate violence but say it is the result of a few isolated individuals acting on their own. Apparently these few they have been quite busy; over 200 clinics were bombed or burned, and over 400 death threats were received by doctors and clinic workers the year Salvi went on his rampage.
Several days after the shooting I went to a public meeting at Brookline high school organized for people to discuss ways to support doctors and clinic workers. I sat with a friend who is also an Episcopal priest, and she and I listened to the usual range of people who attend and speak out in such meetings. There was bombastic rhetoric, solid suggestions, a few concrete actions proposed.
Near the end of the meeting a woman made her way to the microphone. She began, somewhat haltingly, “We have been talking a lot about all the things we can do. Many people have suggested a lot of practical steps to take, ways to organize and to get power. But I keep thinking we’ve jumped over something, we’re skipping a step.” She stopped, took a breath. “We haven’t really talked about what this has been like for us, how we feel. Many of us felt as though the recent national elections were depressing, discouraging, and now, added to that, come these attacks. They were horrible, and terrifying, and so sad, so sad. I am frightened. I don’t want to quit, I came out here tonight, but this is so discouraging and I am so frightened. I need to say that.” She sat down. The room was quiet.
I realized at that moment that back on the night of the attacks, when I reassured Josh that we were safe, I had been wrong. It may have been true that the attacker had fled, but the fact remained that around the corner from our house, across the street from the Beacon Market and the Busy Bee Restaurant, places where we shop and have dinner and catch the trolley, women had been shot with a rifle by someone who did not know them and who had never met them, and one of them was dead. Up the street, in the building where Josh got his braces tightened and I bought him a candy bar, other people were also shot and another woman killed.
Josh was right, we should be scared. Our doors were not thick enough, our locks were not strong enough to keep this away.
Three years earlier, when Josh was nine, our family drove across the country, visiting several national parks, including Bryce Canyon in Southwestern Utah. We arrived there in the late afternoon, and after we got settled in our cabin Josh and I went exploring in the fading, dusky light. We made our way to the edge of the canyon and looked out, and then we turned and walked back through some woods. It was getting dark, hard to see. Josh stopped me, pointing. Up ahead something moved. It was a deer.
“Can we get closer, Dad?” Josh whispered.
“Sure,” I told him. “Walk slowly, and be quiet.”
Josh moved carefully ahead, and I followed. We had never seen a deer up close before, and I was excited for him. He moved very slowly, deliberately. We approached the deer which now stood, watching us, not moving but attentive. Josh got closer, and the deer raised its head.
Josh sensed that it was frightened. He quit moving forward, stood motionless, and then slowly, carefully, he lifted his arm, extending it out toward the deer, with two fingers raised in a peace sign. He held his hand out, not moving, and then whispered to the deer, “It’s all right.”
The deer’s ears flickered forward and then it sprang away.
Josh turned to me, excited. “We got so close, Dad. Did you see it? Wasn’t that great?”
“Yeah, it was great. You were so careful and gentle.”
“I showed him that we wouldn’t hurt him. Do you think he understood?”
“Yes, I think so.”
I was moved by his nine-year old’s hope that he could communicate to the deer that there was nothing to fear. “Come on, let’s go.” I reached for his hand as we turned and started moving toward our cabin, and he let me hold it as we walked along, slowly finding our way back together through the dark.
34 responses
A very clever piece that eloquently views a shattered world through the perspective of an innocent boy. Since the most recent shootings there have been many columns on both sides of the fence vehemently arguing one way or the other. This essay offers a new thoughtful insight to something in the past that is completely relevant again. Well done.
Wow. I walk by one of those sights each day and I’m so moved by the imagery of the way evil can seep into the fabric of everyday life. That waitress and the injured dog stuck “why would someone do that?” It captures the sense of vulnerability that we all share, the peace that can be shattered instantly, by hate. I think the conversation with the protesters is fascinating as well because it comes from a place of honest curiosity not just seeking to refute their position. Anyway, thanks again for this one it helped to give me a context and place of hope to meditate on. The events of the past two weeks have weighed heavy on my mind.
What a wonderful piece! Jep’s style is so clear and simple, yet what he’s talking about underneath are the deep important matters of life: good and evil, innocence and experience, human relationships. I wish that all on both sides of the controversial issue upon which he touches could view it in the tender human context that Jep sees so well and shares with us.
At last, some generous sanity on this issue. There’s news and then there’s human toll – so often this never gets discussed in anything close to a thoughtful manner. I remember the night of the night of the Lee Ann Nichols shooting – we filled the street in front of the clinic in Brookline. It was oddly quiet. It wasn’t a rally – more like a spontaneous gathering of a city in shock. This essay brings back vividly that night of collective grief.
A very thoughtful, well written piece. The writer has a lot of talent. We need to see more of his work
thank you for publishing this thoughtful piece in the rumpus. the scenes were evocative — spare yet rich in detail — and the commentary was insightful. i felt part of the journey alongside streit and his son, and moved by the conclusion that no lock or other physical measure could keep any of us safe from the violence of salvi’s actions.
let’s see more of jep streit’s work.
This piece does exactly what a good personal essay should.
I was in college in Providence in 1994…we came back from winter break a short time after this event. We all knew we were supposed to do something, but no one was sure what. There was a soggy demonstration on the Green; the more determined went to Boston two weeks late with flowers and signs. I chose to do my American Studies paper. Mostly I remember exactly the feeling you’ve captured–muted horror and confusion, mixed with something darker that only an essay like this can begin to explain. Thanks for lovely work.
My sister, Amy Hagstrom Miller, knew Dr. George Tiller well, she hired him at the four women’s clinics she owns and runs in Texas. What she and her colleagues are always looking for is religious people in support and understanding of their work. Jep, you are there for them, for women, what a voice, lets hear more!
Strong work, thank you Jep Streit. These stories live on the front pages and join the media hum along with every other story of the day. It’s easy to forget how they reverberate in the lives of those touched at close range. Even those touched at a tangent as you and your young son were. What’s great about your piece is how tenderly you move us through your experience. Love to hear from you again on these pages on other subjects.
I can hardly believe this is your first published piece. The Church would be the poorer, but readers the richer, if you quit your day job to write full time. Keep on getting your clear, compassionate words out into the world. And thank you for your understanding and ministry to women in need of safety and sanctuary in times of stress and crisis, for you unwavering support of justice.
So moving in so many ways. First, let me say that this writer, whoever he may be, is able to capture the myriad of contradictory impulses around public events like this — in part because of his happenstance and personal proximity to the events; but also because of how he describes the synchronicity of time/place/action, and brings the reader, along with the child, to the nexus of events. Secondly, the writer is also present to the role of the mature parent who attempts to manage and interpret the chaos, while searching for the the other world that makes sense. Thirdly, he captures the pure inanity that happens, from time to time, because we are human and our world is not only complex, but also screwed up. There are no easy answers here, but the feelings are universal and they are profound.
I very much appreciate the generous way people have responded to my piece. Thank you. I’m gratified in the way my own recollections trigger others’ memories of that time and those events, which of course were so powerful (and so appalling) that I’m not surprised that they still reverberate. I’m grateful that the Rumpus ran my essay.
The imagery is vivid – tender, haunting and thought-provoking . . . Streit offers neither condemnation or compassion for those who commit terrible acts with the intention of doing good. Instead, he allows the reader to suffer the desperate confusion of such events, even through the side story of the greyhound placed in the owner’s car. The infuriating and unresolved “why?†brings us to examine our feelings again, and I appreciate material that challenges me.
A wonderfully evocative piece refreshingly full of compassion and nuance, not kneejerk opinions which does not try to over-simplify complex issues or emotions. Well done.
All decent people decry the murder of Dr. Tiller and of John Salvi’s victims in 1994. By focusing his essay on these events, though, Jep seizes the moral high ground for abortion advocates, while subtly disparaging the beliefs of the anti-abortion advocates whose views he offers us. What’s missing from this essay, though perhaps it belongs in another essay, are Jep’s own beliefs about when life begins. When does he believe that Josh became a human being? Not at conception, apparently, but possibly at some point between conception and birth? Has he “never really thought about it before†like the woman whom he confounds with his question about funerals for miscarriages? This is an elegant and evocative piece whose disparate scenes are beautifully woven together, but when I read it, I can’t help but wonder how many Jeps and Joshes may be among the lives never lived by the unknown victims of abortion, which, while it may not be murder, may sometimes be the taking of a human life.
Jep spoke to some of the abortion protesters at a demonstration a few years earlier. I admire that. Conversations with those with whom we disagree are important. Barak Obama put it well in his speech at Notre Dame. He told the story of the doctor who called upon him to change his rhetoric and use “fair-minded words.” We need to “walk along, slowly finding our way back together through the dark.”
Jep, you know that I always enjoy your sermons, now your essays also. I was reminded of how gently you listened to the stories of those on the Gulf Coast who were fearful of another storm and for whom telling the story was part of healing the wound. I had a cousin who was an OBGyn in TX and who suffered for years with demonstrators following him around and shouting obscenities at his wife and children. You are right in saying that all of our lives are touched by hatred and violence. Thanks for reminding me that my job is to offer a hand of peace and to speak out against evil acts.
Great job, Jep. Your compassionate and loving voice comes through loud and clear.
Touching portrayal of fear generated by a violence in our society. I am confused by the parallel narrative regarding the reassurance given to Josh that seems to say everything is okay and hopeful( esecially,the concluding story of the deer). Perhaps the themes presented would be better served by dividing this into more than one essay. The focus could be narrowed and homilies messages clarified.
make that Mike not Mke-sorie
What does ‘”your comment is awaitng moderation” mean? It appears that everything I wrote disappeared.
A very powerful piece, not only becuase of what was written, but the strength of meaning between the lines. I especially liked that Jep left plenty of room for readers to draw their own conclusions and keep their own counsel, without hiding his own sensibilities.
Jep’s a friend of mine, so I may not be terribly objective, but I point that out becuase I’ve read other things he’s written over the years,and been knocked on my ass by his sermons and words of comfort at tragic events, and am glad that he’s finding other venues for his compelling words.
Such a strong and delicate piece. Jep is one of my pastors, so familiarity with his preaching and an ability to “see” his voice certainly adds to my appreciation of this piece. That, plus the personal experience of an extreme kind, that of being labeled in a way that obscures the truth of my life and attempts to degrade my being, makes me sensitive to edge of violence words used to demonize those with whom we disagree or punish forever those we cannot forgive. So, Jep’s link between words and violence left an impression on this heart, one quite open to its receipt. And the message that kindness lights the path from darkness – even in the face of deep sorrow – is letting my heart settle, peacefully, into the day’s doings, with hope that love, in the end, will absorb it all.
It’s a gift to have such a nuanced and generous voice working on this hard material. More please.
I was struck by Streit’s conclusion: don’t we all want a hand to hold ours as we find our way through the darkness surrounding us? And isn’t it wonderful when that is recognized by a new voice such as his.
The mark of Jep’s writing, as well as his preaching, is the gentle companionship with which he guides the reader to face the hard burdens and responsibilities of life. It is a blessing. Please publish more of his work.
I was so moved by Jep’s wonderful piece. It is particularly timely with the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller, underscoring the need to forge a path through the darkness of anger, violence and intolerance. Jep’s work extends a strong, compelling voice to this sad issue. I look forward to seeing more of your work published. Thank you, Jep!
A strong piece of writing. Thank you Jep for drawing your readers into a well-crafted story through which we are reminded of a timeless message: walk quietly, hold your hand out to those who are afraid, and go in peace among all living beings.
Knowing the writer as I do, I was not suprised by the emotion and way in which he can draw a reader into a story. What touched me was the compassion and empathy with women and victims of violence as well as how fear can grab hold of all of us children of God. With parents, priests, friends and writers like Jep, we know we are not alone and are strengthened to care work towrd non-violence everywhere.
Fine writing with energetic forward motion and great details. This battleground in our culture is starting to seem like The Thirty Year War. Maybe Jep Streit should write a book along these lines. There’s a distinct and original and valuable voice here, a wide compassion that reminds me of Thomas Merton’s best work.
I’ve read this powerful essay several times. Dr. Tiller’s death and the shooting in the Holocaust Museum make the 1994 killings in Brookline sadly relevant. As others have said, there are no easy answers here. Jep’s essay captures his own evolving emotions. He’d like to assure his son that the danger has past but then comes to realize he was wrong. He avoids judgments but he does note that the “isolated individuals,†disavowed by anti-abortionists, created a great deal of fear and destruction in just one year. He implies that this hatred must be confronted even though we struggle with fear and incomprehension. His answer is love and respect. The tenderness he shows his son, especially in their encounter with the deer, helps to balance the irrationality and intolerance that is so disturbing. This is a beautifully written piece filled with details that perfectly evoke a time and place as well as the universal ties of community and relationships. I’d like to read more from this author.
I used to work on page layout for CNC, the regional newspaper group that owned the Brookline Tab. When the shooting happened, we were near deadline and just wrapping things up and putting the paste-ups in a box to send to the courier when we got word of the story and had to make an instant decision to re-work the whole paper, resulting in some of us pulling an all-nighter.
So that’s a weird thing about journalism; you work harder when catastrophe happens, and you are profiting from the misfortunes of others in a way.
thank you for telling the story so well. Shannon was a dear friend and is missed very much. This event changed the lives of so many people. Your account, your story, allows the memory of what happened live on.
I didnt realize how paralel peoples lives can be. I didnt realize until after finishing this story that I was involved distantly. The morning of the shooting in Brookline I had left my Parents home in Natick Massachusetts to return to Norfolk, Va and the Navy. I made the trip in 11 hours or so. Upon my arrival in Norfolk, I stopped by the navy Federal Credit Union on Little Creek Rd too get some cash out of the bank. As I pulled up the place was full of police cars. The abortion clinic on the first floor of the building had been shot up by Salvi shortly before my arrival. Bullet holes in the building and all. I too had seen protesters there many times, had talked with them. Been called a sinner for doing business in the building even. I lived right up the street from the clinic and always felt safe there.
I was glad when Navy Federal moved out of the building. In another parallel, I had just got braces too. Boy what a small world. ANOTHER paralel, I had to get braces again last week due to not wearing my retainer. Then I read this article. Interesting.
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