[LINK] What do you do with trauma?

[rfmcdonald]

There have been many reactions to the recent murder of Tim McLean, a very unfortunate yong man who was stabbed, beheaded, and partially cannibalized while on a Greyound long-range bus in Manitoba by a man alleged to be one Vince Weiguang Li. Among the least helpful was the one reported by the Winnipeg Sun.

A fundamentalist church group from the U.S. has announced it plans to picket the funeral of Tim McLean Jr. in Winnipeg, declaring, "God is punishing Canada."

"People are absolutely outraged about it," said Doug Mitchell, a friend of McLean's for about seven years.

Led by pastor Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas issued a release saying they would picket McLean's funeral this weekend.

Phelps' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said about seven church members are expected to come to Winnipeg. "What we're doing is trying to connect dots," Phelps-Roper told the Winnipeg Sun last night. "We're trying to get you to see that your rebellion against the standards of God, your disobedience to the commandments -- your idols, your false gods, your filthy ways have brought wrath upon your head."

Among the most helpful reactions was the community-building response reported by Gerald Hannon in The Globe and Mail this Monday just past.

Ute Lawrence is sitting at a table on the outside patio of One, a restaurant in Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood, where a bottle of imported mineral water will set you back $9 and perfectly complement your $29 salad. She fits the scene well, or seems to. She appears to be a fine exemplar of that cultural phenomenon, the Lady Who Lunches: late middle age, dark glasses, slightly clumping mascara, an adornment of bangles and sparkly bits, a slight English accent (born in Germany, she moved to England at 18), a cigarette and - you might guess - not an awful lot of ways to fill her time. You'd be wrong. Ute Lawrence has a great deal to fill her time, and has since Sept. 3, 1999, when, blithely secure in her ordinary life, the day came.

She and her husband were driving from their home in London, Ont., to Detroit along Highway 401. They were just east of Windsor when a combination of dense fog and tailgating precipitated the worst highway pileup in Canadian history - 87 vehicles in a chain of twisted metal, flames and carnage. Forty-five people were injured. Eight people died. One of them was a 14-year-old girl, pinned by a van against the passenger window of Ms. Lawrence's car. She burned to death, while Ms. Lawrence and her husband watched. They were eventually pulled from their car, and suffered only a few minor cuts.

Today Ms. Lawrence, 60, is, with her husband, the founder of North America's first civilian Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Association. In April she published a book, The Power of Trauma. She lectures frequently on the topic, and maintains a list of sympathetic and knowledgeable professionals to whom she can refer those who contact her.

People often come to her late - it took Ms. Lawrence a while before she realized she needed help, before she realized that a phenomenon she thought could apply only to battle-scarred military men might apply to her as well. When we spoke about last Wednesday's violent murder and beheading on a Winnipeg-bound bus, she was adamant that "each and every one of those people need to go their hospital trauma centre. They've got to realize that an event like that can have long-term effects on their lives. They may think they're okay, but symptoms don't always appear right away and they should be on the lookout for them."