PORT TOWNSEND — As the crowd began to disperse after the candlelight vigil in Port Townsend, Ellen Bonjorno felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Those women are from Orlando,” the person said, pointing to four women at the edge of the group gathered on the Haller Fountain Plaza.
“I went over and hugged them,” said Bonjorno, one of the organizers of the June 14 vigil in memory of the 49 people killed June 12 in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The Orlando women were in Port Townsend on vacation, Bonjorno said.
They told her, “ ’We happened to drive by and saw you were doing this, and we had to stop.’
“They were really touched that we were doing that,” Bonjorno said, remembering it Wednesday.
“They had at times been to that club,” she added. “They said lots of people who weren’t gay go there.”
PA vigil Saturday
Another North Olympic Peninsula candlelight vigil for those who were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando is planned Saturday.
Port Angeles resident Shanee Wimberly has scheduled the vigil for 6:30 p.m. near the gate of the Coast Guard station on Ediz Hook.
Wimberly, 24, feels it’s important to create “a communal space” where people can “express condolences.”
“It’s the perfect opportunity to come together as a community,” she said.
Both Wimberly and Bonjorno feel community gatherings to remember the deaths are important.
After hearing about the shooting, described as the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Bonjorno said, “I was like, well, we have to do something.”
“It truly was an attack on LGBT people and/or Latino people,” said Bonjorno, who is a lesbian — “and you can put that in the newspaper.”
She remembers enjoying dancing in clubs. To think of being out having a great time and then suddenly being killed was chilling. And she had met one of the women who died, Kimberly Morris, at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival last year.
So Bonjorno and two others, Julia Cochrane and Jason Serinus, organized the Port Townsend gathering that Bonjorno estimates drew 150 people. The Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader weekly newspaper estimated 200 attended, and KPTZ 91.9 FM said 500 were there.
Since then, Bonjorno’s grief has deepened even more.
“One thing that’s been on my mind a little bit is that a gay guy I know who was at the vigil told me he didn’t feel it was a gay thing at all, it was a human thing,” she said Wednesday.
“It was the loss of human lives that was troubling him.”
Said Dianne Diamond, one of those at the vigil: “What was beautiful was there were people of all ages there — a young man in the 10th or 11th grade, clusters of LGBT people intermixing with everybody.
“A wide range of people were there.”
‘A peaceful event’
It sounds very much like what Wimberly hopes to see at the vigil she has planned.
Wimberly said she “just wanted to hold a peaceful event.
“They don’t have to agree with [people] being gay,” she said. “This is about coming together.”
A poster with photos of the people who were killed at the nightclub will be at the gathering near the Coast Guard station on the Hook.
Wimberly plans to have a banner proclaiming “Port Angeles Stands With Orlando” that people can sign.
People can bring flashlights or candles, “preferably battery-powered ones in case it’s windy.”
On the Facebook page dedicated to the Port Angeles vigil at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-orlandovigil, 43 had said they would attend while another 99 were interested as of Thursday.
Anyone who wants to speak at the vigil is encouraged to do so, but Wimberly doesn’t have a long list of speakers planned.
“I don’t want it to be too organized,” she said.
“I want it to be a space for people to come and express themselves, and take time to commemorate the victims.”
Name the shooter?
At the Port Townsend vigil, the names and ages of everyone killed were read aloud — except for the shooter, who was killed by police.
The Rev. Tony Brown of Trinity United Methodist Church urged the shooter’s name be added to the list.
“I was at a vigil last night in Kitsap County, and what they did was they counted to 50. As you know, 50 would include the killer,” he said, according to the KPTZ podcast.
“The nun who was there speaking, when she said, ‘We’re going to count to 50,’ people said, ‘No, 49, 49.’
“And she said, ‘Like it or not, we’re called to love everybody. Even the 50th, who is not only a victim of the world but who also became one who victimized others.’ ”
In the end, the shooter’s name was not read aloud as one of the dead, Diamond said.
Diamond said that most felt that “no one remembers the name of the victims and everyone remembers the names of the killers, and we’re not going to promote that.
“We can forgive them, but we don’t have to mention them.”
Cochrane made a huge board displaying the people who were killed.
“It was really beautiful, really the centerpiece of the vigil,” Bonjorno said.
The board is now on display at Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at 2333 San Juan Ave., she said.
Mass killings
“I think in this particular case, LGBT people were targeted,” Bonjorno said.
“However, these mass killings have been going on for years. It’s been schools, churches, shopping malls, a movie theater,” she added.
“I’ve been thinking it felt good that all those people showed up for LGBT people, but I think we’re all mourning the loss of an America where we’re not having to wonder when the next mass killing will be.
“We all just want to have that life back when we were kids when that stuff didn’t happen.”
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
