FERGUS – The thrumming sound of many voices talking at once fills the rooms and hallways of the Graham Giddy Funeral Home on Thanksgiving Day.
Roughly 300 people, made up of family, friends and community members, are filtering in and out of the home on Monday afternoon during a memorial for Lucas Shortreed, a son, grandson and friend to many, who was struck and killed by a car on Oct. 10, 2008.
Repeated pleas from police and family for information about who hit and killed Lucas were answered by a silence lasting over a decade. A breakthrough in the coldcase caught the family by surprise three weeks ago, when on Sept. 21, police announced two Wellington North residents were arrested and charged.
Lucas Shortreed was once again launched into the headlines, followed by a bombardment of support over social media for his mother, Judie Moore, and the family.
Judie planned to hold a memorial for Lucas, wanting to give the community an opportunity to come together and move forward on a more positive note.
“I do want it to be a sense of ‘Let’s put this behind us and move on with just celebrating Lucas now,’” Judie previously told the Advertiser.
Mementoes of Lucas – a Christmas ornament with his name, Mother’s Day cards and photos – are arranged throughout a blue-carpeted hallway leading to a viewing room at the funeral home.
People read through a booklet of written memories, gifted to Judie following her son’s funeral at the home 14 years ago.
Ellen Brenneman’s poem My Journey’s Just Begun appears on a card next to a photo of Lucas.
“Don’t think of me as gone away / My journey’s just begun / Life holds so many facets / This earth is but one,” the poem begins.
Inside the room are many of Lucas’ family members, friends, and Judie’s neighbours and colleagues, some having made the trip from Toronto, Mississauga, Burlington, Mount Forest and even Alberta.
Standing in circles of all ages, they share memories, laugh and cry. Some hold lemons, a fruit Lucas was particularly fond of growing.
“Take a lemon and hold it close,” a sign read near a basket. “Smell, feel, and remember Luke.”
Lucas had a “big, giving, soft heart,” says John Moore, a brother of Judie. “Big grin, big chuckles, big memories,” he adds.
Indeed, the room is full of big memories.
His sports team photos, his secondary school diploma, Centre Wellington District High School student ID cards, a purple Raptors hat, and lining a table are all sizes of pink, plush dolls of the Disney character Piglett, as Lucas was affectionately known.
Plush dolls of the Disney character Piglett, as Lucas was affectionately known. (Photo by Jordan Snobelen)
A photo album displays a collection of moments from Lucas’ childhood, frozen in the flash of washed-out film found in most family albums from the ‘90s.
He could be any teenager plucked from the decade, photographed wearing hoodies with big graphics on the front, and baseball caps.
People gather around the album, flipping through its pages, trying to place themselves and their ages, as memories lost to time are sharpened for a brief moment, evoking laughs and smiles.
Across the room, John pulls Judie in close, the siblings wrapping their arms around each other. They linger for a moment, and not quite releasing, John holds Judie’s arm for another beat, the two sharing quiet words.
Expelling a heavy sigh, Lucas’ sister, Jenneen Beattie, says there were a lot of faces she hadn’t seen in a long time. The day had been bitter-sweet.
It presented an opportunity to reopen and reorganize what she describes as a messy and incomplete box of trauma, packed away when she gave up hope for a breakthrough in the cold case four years ago.
At 86 years-old, Lucas’ grandfather, Gerald Shortreed, no longer recognizes some of the younger faces in the room who, in his eyes, would have been children the year his grandson died. Gerald found the memorial “overwhelming,” expressing gratitude for all who continued supporting the family for so many years.
As the memorial winds down, lingering family pack up photos and cards, carrying boxes to cars.
Judie says her feelings are difficult to put into words.
“People have given me lots of support,” she remarks.
That hundreds of people passed through, sharing stories of Lucas, is living proof of her son’s far-reaching and enduring influence in the lives of those who knew him.
As Brenneman says in her poem, “And think of me as living / In the hearts of those I touched / For nothing loved is ever lost / And I know I was loved so much.”
