LEWISTON — Almost a year after the Oct. 25, 2023, mass shooting took Joshua Seal from his loved ones, the University of Southern Maine’s community gathered at the school’s Lewiston-Auburn campus Tuesday to remember the American Sign Language instructor, along with the other 17 lives that were lost that day.

Seal taught at the school’s American Sign Language program. “For the first time in history, a mass shooting killed and injured a large number of deaf people,” Sandra Wood, professor of linguistics at University of Southern Maine who oversees the ASL program, said Tuesday in American Sign Language (ASL).

“Seal taught ASL and worked closely with our ASL English interpreting students,” Wood said. “He was a well-known certified deaf interpreter who (was) often seen on the screen next to Dr. Nirav Shah and Gov. Janet Mills during the COVID pandemic quarantine, interpreting for the deaf community, ensuring that the information shared with the people of Maine was accessible to us all.”

“Maine has always been thought of as a safe, quiet state, cocooned from the effects of sudden violence experienced by other shootings. Shootings that took place in states far away. This innocence has shattered that night with 18 people killed and 13 injured. Many more survived the shooting with trauma that will be etched in their minds forever,” Wood said.

“Four of those killed were deaf: William Brackett, Bryan MacFarlane, Joshua Seal and Stephen Vozella. Five deaf men survived the shooting. Two with physical wounds. Three with invisible, unspoken injuries,” Wood continued.

Clara Perka, left, and John Robert O’Connor decorate rocks Tuesday afternoon following an event called “Together We Remember” at the University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn Campus on Westminister Street in Lewiston. Both work for the University of Southern Maine. “In the spirit of today I wrote Lewiston Strong, Love, Care and Community at USM.” said Perka. The idea of the Kindness Rocks Project is for people to take a rock that inspires them and leave one to inspire others. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“Countless others, deaf and hearing, many of them from here at USM, donated their time, energy, food, and I suspect it will take a long time before the trauma subsides. Part of that trauma is based on our collective experiences in dealing with the systemic barriers and assumptions made about our culture and our language, which were only intensified during and after the shooting,” Wood said.

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A year later, many still grieve.

“We were just sharing with each other where we were when we heard the news. How surreal the whole thing was. The lockdowns and how it affected everybody. Watching the helicopters over the houses, searching through the air for a minute or two,” Mary Larlee, a science lab coordinator at the school’s Lewiston-Auburn campus, recalled.

“Moving forward, but not moving on. I think it’s important for us to remember. For the most part, we’re back to our day-to-day lives, but (the grief) is always there,” Cheryl Paluso, another staff member at USM, said.

“People’s lives are hectic and busy and there’s often not time in the daily stress of life to remember (the lost lives) in a proper way,” Riley Worth, a graduate student at USM and former president of the student body, said.

“We shouldn’t look down upon people for having busy lives that need to move on. What today means, and what we should focus on going forward, is finding a way, a time, a place, whatever it means for each individual person, to remember,” Worth added.

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