{"id":2677,"date":"2009-12-06T19:56:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T00:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2009-12-07T23:33:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-08T04:33:00","slug":"private-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/12\/06\/private-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"private lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em> <\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2684\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2684\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2684\" title=\"Plaque commemorating 14 victims of the Montreal Massacre Decd 6, 1989\" src=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/340px-Mtl_dec6_plaque-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Plaque at \u00c9cole Polytechnique in Montreal\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2684\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plaque at \u00c9cole Polytechnique in Montreal<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[Twenty years ago today, a misogynist shot<br \/>\n&#8220;feminists&#8221; at \u00c9cole Polytechnique in Montreal, killing<!--more--><br \/>\nGenevi\u00e8ve Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student<br \/>\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nNathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nBarbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nAnne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student<br \/>\nMaud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student<br \/>\nMaryse Lagani\u00e8re (born 1964), budget clerk in the \u00c9cole Polytechnique&#8217;s finance department<br \/>\nMaryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student<br \/>\nAnne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nSonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nMich\u00e8le Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student<br \/>\nAnnie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student<br \/>\nAnnie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student<br \/>\nBarbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what it&#8217;s like to be shot.<br \/>\nKnives wielded by surgeons or my own careless hand<br \/>\nhave invaded what&#8217;s under my skin, and sometimes<br \/>\npain, shock or curses have ensued. After the triple<br \/>\nhernia surgery and the kidney stones episodes,<br \/>\nand busting my nose a couple of times, I can say<br \/>\nI know about pain; but I can only guess what<br \/>\nbeing shot does to you. The few times somebody<br \/>\nwith a gun paid attention to me, that somebody<br \/>\nwas a customs officer or a cop in a peaceful situation.<br \/>\nA slug rips into your body\u2014 abrupt as waking in mid-<br \/>\nauto crash; perhaps just as final. If you live for<br \/>\nmore than a few seconds, you have time to feel<br \/>\npain, the violation, and, strangely, the shame.<br \/>\nShame is illogical; yet, that is a big part of trauma:<br \/>\nthe victim has gone from being a normal part of<br \/>\na normal group to the indignity of victimhood,<br \/>\nbecome helpless, totally dependent on others.<br \/>\nThere were other victims that day besides<br \/>\nthose who died: those who killed themselves later,<br \/>\nthose who survived, physically injured or not,<br \/>\nand those of us who are ashamed that a human being<br \/>\ncould do such a thing to satisfy his own twisted ego.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the twentieth anniversary of the \u00c9cole Polytechnique Massacre. (#995) <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/12\/06\/private-lives\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,416],"tags":[821,819,820],"class_list":["post-2677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-thoughts-below-ground","tag-ecole-polytechnique-massacre","tag-misogyny","tag-public-murder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}