The city of Lakewood and the entire area came together to grieve at a memorial on December 8. You can read about it here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/lakewoodshooting/story/983539.html. Celeste and I pulled Rix and Olivia out of school to watch the procession to the Tacoma Dome. It was almost four hours long, but I felt it was important to show Olivia that even in the wake of something so tragic, people can still have hope and a sense of comfort.
The two above pictures were not taken by me, I got them from the King5 website. The top shows the scene after the memorial, where you can see the firetrucks tribute to the fallen officers and the Tacoma skyline in the background. The below one shows the Lakewood precinct and the four hearses driving by and underneath an American flag held up by firetruck ladders. All 2000+ police cars, firetrucks and ambulances in the procession drove under this flag.
Olivia, Jack, Celeste and Cole. Madelynn is screaming in the back of the stroller. It was freezing outside and my kids were poorly dressed thanks to me! I wasn't prepared for how cold it really was! We watched the procession for about 20 minutes, then watched the rest from our warm cars because our cars were parked right by the street so we had a great view.
Like I said, over 2000 cars, trucks and motorcycles participated in the procession from precincts as close as Tacoma and as far away as New York and Boston. It was amazing to me that officers would travel as far as they did to honor someone they didn't know, but it showed to me the respect they all have for one another. Celeste started to write down all the cities we saw represented but ran out of room, there were so many! So many different cities from Oregon, Idaho, California, Washington, Canada, Utah and on and on. It was a somber day and I tried to watch the memorial on TV but it was too emotional for me. Even still I see blue ribbons and balloons honoring those officers and it makes me sad to know that nine children lost a parent that day, but it strengthens me to know that the community came together like they did.
4 comments:
I'm so glad I wasn't there, I would have been a mess! I'm glad you got to witness it then and be reminded about the great people in the community. Thanks for the post and the pictures!
I saw this story in our local paper and totally thought of you. What a horrible thing for those poor families! That's neat that you got to use it as a teaching experience for your kids. It is so shocking when something like this happens and you see how horrible hate can be.
Wow! How sad! I guess I need to watch the news more, cause I didn't even hear about this.
Dang! I look fat in winter clothes! And the pictures from King 5 were awesome. Next time (hopefully there isn't a next time) but if we ever go out in the cold like that again we'll be more prepared!
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