Two days later was the memorial service for Tawny Shaw. It was raw, being just two days after the actual incident. The students and the community needed to purge the grief and horror inside of them. While it was clear that Pinzetti had set out primarily to draw me out, an innocent bystander had lost her life.
It was fitting, I guess, that for the first time in two months, the sky was cloudy and threatened rain. Tawny worked at the school for two years more than I had, and from everything I saw, was loved by her students. Teaching special education is damned difficult, because each student has their own challenges and their own unique makeup, even more so than a normal teenager. Yet somehow Tawny handled it all with an insufficient budget and not a lot of thanks, both from the system that only wanted to make sure the students weren't an embarrassment and from families that more often than not saw their children as a burden more than a blessing.
The entire school and a lot of the community turned out for the memorial service, which had been quickly put together at the football stadium. It was the only place in town large enough for everyone to attend. Her husband, a nice guy I'd met at school events and the staff Christmas party the year before, shook hands with as many people as he could before taking his seat.
I was dressed in my most somber suit, a navy blue thing that I'd last worn for my job interview with the school board. I wished I had a black suit, but there just wasn't enough time. Looking at the stands, I saw that I wasn't the only one and that most of the crowd were dressed in a mixed array of colors ranging from browns through the blues to the blacks. Melina was wearing a black skirt and dark blue blouse that she'd picked up the day before. We both felt ragtag and unprepared, and in a lot of ways, we were.
After the invocation by the minister, the speakers began. The first, the mayor of T or C, was pretty standard. He didn't know Tawny, except perhaps as a face when he would come around the schools on visits every once in a while. His speech was heartfelt, but you could tell he had put it together from a file assembled by the School Board's HR department. Thankfully he kept it short.
After the mayor, things warmed up. The other speakers, starting with Principal Bernardino, had all known Tawny. There was a conscious effort by the speakers to avoid tear-jerking commentary and instead focus on the good times. There were glowing recollections of her as both a teacher and a woman, with only one person mentioning the sad way in which she'd died. Her speech was short, but by the end of it there wasn't a dry eye in the entire stadium, and more than a few grown men openly sobbing.
The last speaker was Jeff, Tawny's husband. His eyes were red as well, and he had to blow his nose once before taking the microphone. "Thank you all," he said firstly, clearing his throat before continuing. "Tawny would have been touched to see that she was so well-respected by so many people."
There was some light applause, which I found a bit strange, but it let Jeff pause and gather his thoughts. "As much as Tawny would have appreciated all of this, I don't think she would like it," he said next, struggling to smile. "You see, Tawny believed, and I share in this belief, that we should be remembered for the good we've done. It's not bad to feel sad that she's gone, I know I've spent a lot of the past few days crying. In the next few days, this city is going to be doing a lot of that. But Tawny, she wasn't one to cry. She was one who believed in celebration."
I could feel a smile coming to my face, knowing what was coming next. Tawny had been proud of her Irish heritage, and had decorated her room every year for St. Patrick's Day with an almost excessive amount flair, turning it nearly a total emerald green. And of course, I noticed her favorite music as well. I wasn't the only one smiling, either.
"Tawny loved music," Jeff said. "Whenever I would ask, she said it helped her relax, and it helped her students too. Now, I don't know if it did or not, but I do know Tawny's proud of each and every one of you. But, back to music. Of course, as you all know, Tawny's taste in music sometimes got her in trouble with the school board. I guess compared to some of the music out there nowadays it's pretty tame, but still, I'll admit she played stuff in class that wasn't exactly rated PG. She loved it, though, and I think this would have been a song she'd have wanted to be played today. So, babe, this one's for you."