Graffiti aficionados' deaths mourned
Friends and family pull together to share the pain of loss
In the closely connected West Island, the deaths of three young men in a train accident Monday have caused grief and pain to emanate in an all-encompassing arc. Among the three dead and two survivors, most were from the same graduating year, having finished high school last semester and starting CEGEP, or planning to. Three of the five were either enrolled in fine arts programs or intended to do so.
For many friends, the pain of the loss of Mitchell Bracken-Guenet, Ricardo Conesa and Dylan Ford, all 17, is compounded by the fact they lost a classmate from Beaconsfield High School two years ago under similar circumstances -15-year-old Justin Brousseau was killed by a train near the Beaconsfield train station. One of the survivors lost two best friends -Justin and one of Monday's victims.
Parents are worried for their children -teenagers on the cusp of adulthood who often don't share their pain, or anything else, with their parents. Children of an age when friends are often the most important people in their lives. Parents are also worried that grieving children will want to hold a vigil at the accident site, risking further tragedy.
"Every time we see the kids in pain, we are in pain," said the mother of a boy who was close friends with Bracken-Guenet. She spoke to The Gazette on condition that she not be named. "It's not just our personal child -they are all our kids."
She accompanied her 13-year-old daughter to Beaconsfield High on Monday and stayed there, just in case. The school had counsellors for the children, but the mother ended up taking about 10 students back to her home by 11 a.m. so they could grieve among friends. "Teenagers are used to the death of grandparents, not of people their age, not three at once, and not on top of losing another just years before," said the mother, a hospital employee who works with the dying. "It's a lot for them to take." Her daughter texted in the following days: "Come pick me up from school." "Why, are you sick?" "No, I'm just sad, really sad ... everybody is talking about Mitch and I knew him, Mommy."
Her son sat next to Bracken-Guenet in class at John Abbott College. He wants to change seats. Bracken-Guenet's locker at John Abbott, where he studied fine arts, has become a shrine.
Their pain is compounded by the cruelty of others -comments left on media Internet sites saying a bunch of rich kids from the West Island defacing our territory in St. Henri had it coming, or blaming the parents for letting their sons stay out till 3 a.m.
"You and I, we can filter out those kind of comments," said the mother, who admitted she cried when she read them. "But teenagers can't."
Their pain is compounded by circumstance: The mother of Ford was in the United States burying her mother when she got the call that her son had died.
Conesa was an exchange student; his parents have to come from Spain to claim their son.
Their pain is also compounded by a sense that train corporations are deaf to their pleas to fence high-traffic areas, or put in flashing lights or noise alarms warning of coming trains.
Their pain is soothed by community, companionship, mothers of victims and survivors coming together to cry over their loss. By a vigil held Tuesday night for Bracken-Guenet at the Beaconsfield skateboard park where he was often seen -a popular child who stood out.
The pain is lessened by the dozens of teenagers who surround the survivors -plagued by guilt, traumatized, pale, speaking little -to protect them. The pain is lessened by people like the mother who contacted The Gazette to say to the grieving: "There's a lot of people thinking of you, a lot of people who have lived similar tragedies. You are not alone."
Read more:
http://www.montrealgazette.com