For a few minutes he was just another dead man.
That was the easiest way for me.
For me? Strange.
He’s dead, and somehow the focus is on me.
It all happened so fast. I was in Cite Soleil
Waiting for Isaac, Rene and Conan. We were about to meet with the community leaders to make three community centers, in three different parts of Cite Soleil, with cybercafé, adult education, clinic and housing.
I was standing, lost in thought and planning, and some tough guys said to me
“You should stand somewhere else, Mon Pere.”
I didn’t pay attention to them. I am used to their tough ways.
“I will stand right here, thank you. I am waiting for someone.”
Suddenly, a car came down the road, six of the tough guys drew their guns and surrounded it, and the driver and the car were kidnapped.
I stood in disbelief. It had happened so fast. Suddenly again, another car, this one for a non-profit organization, came down the road. I could see a white woman in the passenger seat and a Haitian driver. I saw them well. I was standing right on the road.
Guns were drawn again. The white woman looked at me. I thought, “she sees me standing here, unafraid, as if I am part of this gang.”
I shouted at the gunmen, “Back off! Leave them alone!”
The driver burned rubber, and squealing tires drove over the curb. They aimed their guns to fire at the escaping vehicle, but they were looking me. No shot was fired. Arnaud said,
“Those people were lucky you were here. They didn’t shoot the car because of you.”
The tough guys, who I do not know, came to me and said, “Go stand somewhere else.”
Before I could even answer, a truck full of people heading to Cape Haitian came along. Guns were drawn again. The thieves took all the luggage, bags and packages.
It seems the car that got away a few minutes earlier told the police down the road what happened. Now the police were racing toward us, open fire, shooting left and right. They chased the thieves, who split up to run. When they split up, the population was no longer afraid of them, and large crowds chased them like lions chase a deer they were able to separate from the herd.
They were throwing stones to kill them. One thief ran in front of me, toward our St Patrick School. The crowd followed. The thief turned toward us to shoot at the people hurling stones.
Next to me was a man making pots. He heated old scraps of aluminium and melted them, then poured the molten metal into clay moulds. His children went to our St Patrick school. He was worried about them. He heard the shots. He stood up from his pots and started to cross the street to reach his children. Just as the thief was turning to fire his gun.
Three shots.
Two entered his belly. One whizzed by my ear.
He was down on the ground. I ran to him, calling Gaston on the phone, who could not get into the area because of the stampedes of people running away. I told him to find any way to make his way in, that there was a man down, and we had to rush him to our hospital.
Before I could finish any sentence, I could see he was dead.
Just another dead man.
It was easier that way.
Until I took our my holy oils, and anointed his forehead, still warm, and furrowed with concern for his children.
Until I anointed his hands, rough from the work he did to provide for them, and stained with blood and clay.
He was just another dead man, I told myself, as his friends and fellow pot-makers came, sullen and shocked, calling out to him. “Jean Louis! Jean Louis!”
It was easier that way.
I led them in prayer. “Jean Louis, go to God. Follow the light, the blessed light. God, free him from confusion and doubt, from fear and worry, forgive him any sin. Let him find you, and let Yourself be found by him.”
Now he wasn’t quite just another dead man.
Not as I watched the grief of his friends, heard their laments,
Not as I was pierced by the wailing of his approaching wife.
Not as I watched the children he had set out to gather and protect, now gathered in front of their lifeless father, fully unprotected. Their braided hair, their school uniforms so clean, dad on the dirt, covered in blood, already ants and flies galore.
He wasn’t just another dead man at all,
as I walked with his friends who wanted to show me his unfinished pots, the tools he had put aside just minutes before, because he heard shooting and thought for his children.
No, he wasn’t at all just another dead man, as I went to his house to console his family, to sit quietly in the face of their grief, and to offer help to bury him.
Another prayer. Another blessing. “Strength, faith, hope, love, may they be deep in you and with you.”
Why were my hands shaking?
Because Jean Louis is not just another dead man. He is my brother. And yours. And his death is our loss.
Please pray for Jean Louis and his family in this moment of anguish. I thank you for it.
Fr Rick Frechette CP
Port au Prince
February 21, 2011
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