Though still in intensive care, Myles Rackley continues to heal even as his community gathered together to hear messages of faith, forgiveness, and comfort. Myles and his mother and younger brother were shot while walking home from school on Tuesday.
The same spirit that led neighbors to rush strangers into their homes as gunshots rang out in the street will also carry the grieving community through the loss of a mother and son killed by a gunman who then turned the weapon on himself.
That was the message spiritual and city leaders had for a hundred or so at an interfaith gathering Thursday night less than a mile from the scene of the tragedy two days earlier. The violence claimed the lives of Memorez Rackley, 39, and her 6-year-old son, Jase, as they walked home from school.
"We feel deep and real pain. That's not going to go away soon," said LDS Bishop Alan Matheson. Still, he urged those who attended the meeting in an LDS chapel "to do what may seem impossible now, and that is to forgive the unforgivable."