BANGOR, Maine — Two children, a brother and sister, kneeled on the bottom steps of Bangor City Hall, holding candles that glowed in honor of the 18 people killed in mass shootings that rocked Lewiston last week.
Gabriel Gilfillan, 10, and his sister, Layla Gilfillan, 8, listened carefully as adults called for peace amidst incredible sadness. Some offered prayers and uplifting words, while a few called for reforms to Maine’s gun laws. Prayers are not enough and ring hollow without action, Sen. Joe Baldacci said.
The children attended the Bangor vigil Sunday night “because people are sad, so we have to try to make them feel better,” Gabriel Gilfillan said. “We at least have to try.”
“And to be helpful to every community member,” his sister added.
Bangor resident Andrew Gilfillan brought his kids simply to offer support during a hard time, he said. Also with him were his wife, Taylor, and their 1-year-old son, Arian. Taylor Gilfillan’s parents and uncle also attended.
About 150 people gathered for the vigil, including members of Maine’s deaf community, setting a portion of downtown Bangor aglow with a sea of candles. They were there to honor the people killed and 13 others injured in Wednesday’s violence, which marks the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s modern history and the country’s deadliest this year.
“We are a state of families, of neighbors and friends, looking out for each other,” Bangor City Councilor Cara Pelletier said. “No act of terror can take that sense of community from us. We are here not only to mourn, but to support and uplift one another.”
The event was Bangor’s way of extending support to neighbors in a city about 100 miles away. The violence was deeply personal for Pelletier, whose great-grandparents, grandparents and father are from Lewiston, where she spent many holidays growing up.
This isn’t unique to her, she said, as many who gathered Sunday could likely tell similar stories. People came together because of the simple truth that they are all connected, and “pieces of your heart are in Lewiston, too,” she said.
Pelletier encouraged acts of kindness, such as giving blood, volunteering or lending an ear to a person distressed in the aftermath of the shootings. These have the power to ripple through a community in a meaningful way, she said.
Levant resident Mahkayla Mailman, 28, came to the vigil with her two children, Axton and Zoey, and her boss, Claudia Perez. They came to pay their respects to the victims and give thanks for the safety of their loved ones.
Mailman’s father lives a short walk from Schemengees Bar and Grille, where Robert R. Card II went on a shooting rampage. Card was found dead two days later of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Mailman said her father plays cornhole at the bar most Wednesdays, but he didn’t go on the night of the shootings. Mailman’s stepbrother also stayed home.
“I’m really thankful that he didn’t go,” she said about her father. “He came back into my life about six years ago. We’ve been pretty close.”
Perez’s former boss, Brit Seal, is the sister of Joshua Seal, a sign language interpreter, husband and father to four children who was killed while playing in a cornhole tournament.
A large group of Maine’s deaf community attended the vigil, watching interpreters from Sorenson Communications to grasp the words of speakers.
They are among the broken-hearted people in Lewiston, the state and nation, said Terry Dinkins, pastor of Bangor’s Mansion Church. He led a prayer honoring the victims, those hospitalized, emergency responders and others touched by the tragedy.
Baldacci, the state senator, called upon Gov. Janet Mills and leadership of both political parties to “embrace common-sense reforms” and to consider bringing the Maine Legislature back to accomplish this. He also called on the governor and state’s attorney general to create a statewide registry of people prohibited from owning firearms, which should be regularly updated and publicly available.
Rep. Amy Roeder heatedly read words that politicians have offered in the wake of mass shootings across the nation, highlighting that not enough is being done to address the root causes of hatred and to prevent future acts of violence.
She had no words of solace to offer, only anger and sorrow, she said.
“We did not know that the blows destined to fall one day on the country so filled with beauty would reverberate through each and every one of us,” she read, from the French writer Colette. “We know it now.
“It is with this kind of love, as it is with the other, we find out very little about it in the joyful times. We are certain of its presence and its power only when it brings us pain.”