Anniversaries

So yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. Every year I remember it is coming, every year I forget the exact day, every year I see some news piece or a white ribbon or something and I am suddenly thrust back to that night, that awful, crappy night.

My parent's generation has JFK's assassination, we all now have 9/11, but for me this was one of the first major events that I can remember how I felt, what it was like out etc etc. I can remember my sister coming home from CEGEP, what she was wearing (docs, jeans and a sweater) I can remember watching the news and crying and crying. I can remember being told that I knew one of the women (only to say hello to, her student club had offices near the student paper where I worked) and seeing her picture on the TV and not recognizing it (grad photos from High School suck) and then seeing a more natural picture of her months later and feeling like someone had kicked me in the gut. I remember being at work (at Sam the Record Man on Ste Catherine Street) and a balloon bursting and everyone in the store freezing, for just a second. I remember all these things and more, and they come rushing back every year at this time.

I am not one of those people who believes that he (I will not write his name, the victims didn't get nearly enough coverage relative to him without my help) was only a madman, or only an extreme extension of the patriarchy, I believe he was a nicely balanced mix of both. Lots of people are nuts, lots of people are sexist, most of them don't go off and kill lots of women. The mix together allowed him to believe that he was right to do what he did, but that hardly makes him unique. I can't remember what book I read this in, but it went like this: Why do men abuse women? Because they can.