Last night, at around 7:45, the body of Robert Card, the mass shooting suspect, was found by the Androscoggin River in Lisbon Falls, the town next to Lewiston, where the murders took place. According to the Portland Press Herald,  “Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck… confirmed Card died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

So it is over. But what a long three days it was as we waited. Each day seemed like a week. Winthrop, the town where I live, is close enough to Lewiston for the town police to have recommended a shelter-in-place. Town offices and functions were closed. We found out that a Winthrop High School student and his father had been killed at the bowling alley.

For three days we wondered, where was the suspect? Was he hiding in the woods? Had he left the state? Had he killed himself and was his body yet to be found?

The last question turned out to be the answer, and as soon as I heard the news last night, I felt a strange combination of relief and numbness.

Central Maine is small enough—Lewiston’s population is 37,000—so that most people had some connection to the mass shooting. As I mentioned in my last post, a woman I have known since she was a child narrowly missed being killed at the bowling alley. She was just about to go in when her boyfriend, who was inside, messaged her to stay outside, that there was an active shooter in the bowling alley. Fortunately, the boyfriend was neither killed nor injured.

And while I don’t know the Winthrop student who was killed, my children went to Winthrop High School, and I can only imagine how they would have felt if something like this had happened when they were students. We are grieving for the family.

Now it is time to heal and recover, and it won’t happen overnight. I am emotionally worn out and be will taking a week or so off from blogging to rest and reflect.

Thank you, thank you to the many blogging friends who sent words of comfort and sympathy in response to the last post where I wrote about the mass shooting. I was so touched by all the kind words. It really does make a difference.

It finally happened in Maine in the small city of Lewiston, about 25 miles away from our home. A man with a gun killed people in a bowling alley and in a sports bar, so far 18 in all with 13 others injured.

A heartbreaking and sickening event. A woman I’ve known since she was a little girl narrowly escaped being killed.

The suspect is still at large, and much of southern and central Maine—where I live—is shut down.

I hope that this man is soon captured and put where he can’t hurt anyone else.

I’ll write more later, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are all right.

Update

Lightning Strikes

September has been quite the month, so eventful that I had to postpone my return to blogging. Originally I had planned to return to blogging the second week of September. But Mother Nature intervened last Friday with a lightning strike on our road’s power line. The strike caused a huge surge, which in turn fried part of our breaker box down cellar. We still have electricity but only if we use it sparingly—no  dishwasher, oven, dryer, washing machine, or vacuum cleaner. Period. But, we have lights, computers, water, our stove top, refrigerator, and freezer. To borrow from my Yankee husband, things could be worse.

An electrician came in, assessed the damage, and presented us with a $3,500 estimate, which includes a whole-house surge protector. Gulp! Fortunately, our home owners insurance will cover much of the cost.

So onward ho with that.

And presenting…Hurricane Lee

We had more or less settled down from the lightning incident only to be faced with Hurricane Lee blasting up the East Coast, with the prediction for Maine and the Canadian Maritimes to get the brunt of the storm. Visions of power outages and no water danced before my eyes. Being completely without electricity is no small thing in a household that now includes five adults, two dogs, and one cat. However, the latest forecast indicates that Lee is turning west, and while coastal Maine will get hit with high winds, it shouldn’t be too bad for inland Maine, where we live.

Still, we are prepared with bread, peanut butter, and plenty of water stashed away in buckets in our cellar.

But, it wasn’t all doom and gloom

Last Friday, the evening of the lightning strike, Clif, our daughter Shannon, our son-in-law Mike, and I went to Van der Brews—a local brewery—for trivia night hosted by the fabulous Nick Perry of Androscoggin Trivia Company.

And readers, we won! With only four on our team, we were definitely the underdogs, surprising everyone with our victory, including ourselves.

But even though we are small team, we are mighty, with a good spread of knowledge among the four of us.

Here is a picture of us as we celebrated our victory. In the middle of our table are the winnings—a Van der Brew glass, a car blanket, and a sticker.

Be back soon, I hope

I probably won’t return to blogging until the breaker box is fixed. With Dee and Shannon both working from home, we are being very careful about electricity usage.

So until then…

Addendum: On Thursday, September 14 at around 4:00, “Governor Mills today declared a State of Emergency and requested that President Biden issue a preemptive Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration for Maine.” (Taken from Maine.gov)

We shall see!