In section 234 of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius we are encouraged to "bring to memory the benefits received" when we reflect on our experiences. In the chaos of the violent events in Ottawa on October 22, 2014, igNation contributor Kevin Burns was caught up in a flood of memories of another violent event in Canada. Today he writes about the experience of seeing one through media coverage and how this "brought to memory" another violent event that he witnessed much closer. As the chaotic events unIfolded in Ottawa, memories of a day he spent in Montreal began to take over. He's titled the piece: Something Simple.

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014, I sat in my office staring at the television and with the radio on in the background. My pulse began to race at the sight of armed police running through the streets of Ottawa amidst frightened passers-by. I knew something about a routine event that is turned upside down by violence. And horrible feelings of discomfort began to take over.   

On Wednesday, September 13, 2006, I travelled to Montreal for an editorial meeting with Sister Marie Azzarello about a book she was working on. She is a member of the Congregation de Notre Dame and we met in the CND Motherhouse, a very impressive building at the corner of a busy intersection, Sherbrooke and Atwater. Our editorial business done, we walked down Atwater for a lunch in a place in the Montreal Forum for which she had a two-for-one coupon. It was about a 10-minute walk away on a bright sunny day down a busy street where students and shoppers and tourists and business people, many still in their summer clothes, were on the look-out for a quick lunch. As we were about to cross de Maisonneuve I heard a sound that I had heard just once before, a long time ago when I was in Nicaragua at a very unsettled time in that country's history. What I had heard then was the unmistakable sound of distant but real gunfire, several bursts of it.

I said to Sister Marie, who had not heard the shots over the sound of the busy traffic, “We should walk quickly now and not stop. Something is wrong here.” And we crossed the street even though the light was still red. Safely crossed, we saw streams of students running in all directions from the main doors of Dawson College, to our right. Many of them were screaming. Almost instantly emergency sirens started wailing.

Within minutes Sister Marie and I were in the safety of a small restaurant in the Montreal Forum, overlooking Place Nihon, a mixed shopping mall and business centre across the street. People were standing at the windows on both sides of the street trying to understand what was going on. There was increasing chaos and panic on the street and police vehicles of all kinds were racing in every direction. The restaurant staff were intent on a “business as usual” approach and began to take orders.

We could clearly see that the intersections around the Forum had been blocked off as the serious crowd control had begun. People were being cleared off the streets and ordered through megaphones to seek the safety of the large atrium inside the Forum. “Up to four shooters” were said to be on the rampage.

A police officer ran into the restaurant and ordered everyone away from the windows and to crouch of the floor. The restaurant staff were told to lock the doors. No-one was to leave the restaurant or the Forum.

I crouched on the greasy and dusty floor of that Montreal restaurant, head protected by a heavy table top, and saw the fear in the eyes of Sister Marie, knowing that she could see that exact same fear in mine.

Then, an armed and helmeted SWAT team, guns at the ready, marched in formation into the now empty Place Nihon across the street.

Cells phones were jammed. No-one really knew what had happened, except that it was violent and it involved Dawson College and its students. And worse: whatever it was, it was not yet over.

About an hour later the restaurant staff were told they could open the doors of the restaurant, but not the doors opening to the street, only those leading into the atrium of the Forum, where by now hundreds of frightened Dawson students and office workers and shoppers and tourists had huddled, looking tearfully at their cell phones that defiantly refused to work. “My mother will be worried and I can’t tell her I’m alright,” said one student. “I saw bodies on the ground,” said another, crying. They were so frightened and they looked so young. And we were all helpless and confused. And together.

Weaving our way around the police-taped off intersections, Sister Marie and I walked back up toward Sherbrooke and managed to get one block away from the Mother House. Behind us, security teams were working their way through each building inside the enormous area of central Montreal that had been taped off. Close as she was to “home”, the police woman at the intersection would not anyone cross. We stood there. It was now becoming cooler and the first reports were coming in about what had happened. They were contradictory: one, four, two shooters … and on it went. 

Then, the door behind us opened – we (and by now there were probably 10 of us) were standing in front of one of those classically elegant and old Montreal condominium buildings. An elderly man said clearly: “I see that you have all bens standing there for quite some time now. If anyone needs a bathroom, please follow me. It’s a bit of a long way.” And so for next 20 minutes he led us, in 2s and 3s all the way up to his beautifully appointed residence on the top floor. Something as simple as a toilet.

By the time we made our way back to the street, Montreal city transit – as all traffic was by then immobilised – opened the doors to all of its buses and  invited anyone to sit down and warm up. Something as simple as a seat.

Phones were beginning to work now and I managed to call my wife back in Ottawa. She was watching the live CBC coverage and the details of what had happened were beginning to emerge. Something as simple as a fragment of information.

It was dark by the time the tape outside the Mother House was removed and I could begin the journey back home. I had to negotiate the initial stages of that journey, block by block, each one with police still guarding, each one suggesting: “I think it’s OK from here. But after that, I don’t know.” I managed to weave my way to the highway and drove through rain back to Ottawa to the soundtrack of a live CBC Radio broadcast of the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre. Safely distant from Montreal, “The Ride of the Valkyrie” blared me closer toward home. Something as simple as a bizarre paradox.    

Later, we all learned that a profoundly disturbed and armed young man had entered Dawson College with an automatic rifle and a pistol, shot and wounded nineteen students, and had killed the 19-year old Anastasia De Sousa. He then killed himself.

In the eight years since that event, I’ve not spoken much about it, though I do feel injured in some way by it. Dawson College has worked strenuously to understand both the physical and the psychological damage on its students who were there that day and has introduced all manner of support services. And since that day, September 13 has become the day I remember in a particular way that awful juxtaposition of the indescribable yet effervescent energy and enthusiasm and anticipation you see in eager young students in the early days of the academic year and how quickly an inexplicable and random act of violence draws dark, vulnerable, and permanent shadows over that.

And then yesterday, here in Ottawa, all that shadow and light of that event from the past caught up with the present moment. Through the physical discomfort of watching, I couldn’t help but see all of those something simples: the stranger caressing the hair of a dying soldier as others strained to keep his heart working. Stunned government workers forced to evacuate their workplace, sirens wailing all around them, guns everywhere, clearly at a loss as to what to do as the door to their building opened. Anonymous hands guide them as they take faltering steps toward safety.      

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Source for all photos: Kevin Burns