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Home/ stevenwarran's Library/ Notes/ November 19, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle, Pondering the pain - Some survivors at Jonestown memorial don't discuss it much, but none has forgotten, by Pia Sarkar,

November 19, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle, Pondering the pain - Some survivors at Jonestown memorial don't discuss it much, but none has forgotten, by Pia Sarkar,

from web site

 
 

Photo: MARK COSTANTINI

 
They came to Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery in their dark clothes and somber moods, talking of the Jonestown massacre as if it had happened yesterday.
 
In reality, it happened 25 years ago, but survivors such as Leslie Cathey kept the memory fresh. She escaped the mass murder-suicides led by the Rev. Jim Jones in the jungles of Guyana by following a railroad track for 37 miles with her toddler strapped to her back.
 
Both she and her son made it out alive, but Cathey lost her husband, mother, brother, sister, niece and nephew -- all of whom stayed behind and died among the more than 900 others either shot or injected with or poisoned by a deadly punch Jones ordered them to drink.
 
Cathey fills her house in Sacramento with photographs of her family -- a daily memorial to the people she loved and lost.
 
"I don't want to forget," said Cathey, 46, who attended Tuesday's commemoration in Oakland, where a single headstone marks the death of more than 400 Jonestown victims. "That keeps me humble. I go on every day. But every day, I think about them."
 
Her son, Jakari Wilson, grieves in a different way -- quietly. Unlike his mother, Wilson stayed clear of the crowds on Tuesday and found an empty patch next to some parked cars, where he stood with his half-brother, Demetrius Cathey. At age 3, Wilson became the youngest survivor of the Jonestown massacre. Now 28, he would rather be known for something else.
 
"It's become a circus," said Wilson, pointing to the TV crews and reporters who nearly matched the number of mourners at the service. "There's no respect."
 
Wilson has no personal recollection of the 25-year-old tragedy, but he has heard all about the 37-mile trek his mother made, and how his father used to be a security guard for Jones.
 
"I know enough about it that I don't want to know any more about it," he said.
 
Instead, Wilson, who tattooed the word "Love" to his neck, focuses on what's more important in his life -- the present.
 
"I cherish my little brother," he said, clamping his arm around Demetrius,
 
who stuck close to Wilson's side throughout the service. "I hang onto him real tight."
 
Others at the service took time to reflect on how Jonestown had changed their lives. Some survivors talked about keeping their past a secret so that no one would judge them.
 
"I certainly don't talk about it for anyone's entertainment," said Vernon Gosney, 50, whose 5-year-old son was killed in Guyana as they tried to escape. "When people know about it, they don't know where to put it."
 
Now a police officer in Hawaii, Gosney has learned to adjust to life after Jonestown without forgetting about it.
 
"It's a part of my life," he said. "It's a part of me becoming who I am."
 
The overarching theme of Tuesday's service was to simply remember Jonestown. Forty strollers, each with a pink carnation laid on its seat, served as a symbol of the 40 infants who died in the massacre. Organizers erected a makeshift wall to be replaced next year with a granite wall bearing the names of all those who died in Guyana.
 
Jynona Norwood, a pastor in Los Angeles who lost 27 relatives in Jonestown, spoke to the crowd of "remembering to remember."
 
"America has not paid attention to Jonestown," Norwood said, noting other tragedies such as Waco and Heaven's Gate that followed.
 
She also urged the general public to erase the perception that the people who died in Jonestown were fanatical cult members following the footsteps of a crazed but charismatic leader.
 
"They died because they thought they were building a better life for us," Norwood said.
 
Wilson, who hung back in the shadows of the crowd, slowly moved forward to listen to Norwood's speech. Uncurling the program in his hand, he flipped through the photocopied pictures of Jonestown's victims.
 
When his mother got up to speak, Wilson stood next to her without saying a word. The crowd applauded him and his mother, and he finally turned to them and smiled.

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