PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Keri Brooks may live in Florida, but right now, her heart is back in Maine.
“We moved to Lewiston, I think when I was about five,” she remembered Friday.
Lewiston is where she grew up and where her brother, Bryan MacFarlane, was killed along with 17 others in a mass shooting.
“You know, it feels like, you know, you’re in a snowglobe. You know, the perception from looking in from the outside is just a cluster, you know, of snowflakes and everything like that. And, you know, you kind of want to get in there, and you kind of want to help, but you can’t,” she said. “You never expect to hear this kind of news.”
Some of the 18 were gunned down at a bowling alley. Others were killed at a bar, including Brooks’ brother, who was there for a weekly cornhole tournament.
“Unfortunately, they were there at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Brooks said.
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Brooks, through a sign language interpreter, described her brother, MacFarlane, as a caring soul who was a huge force in Maine’s deaf community. Both she and her brother were born deaf.
“We both were able to bond because we had the same language,” she said through the interpreter.
For Brooks, who now lives in Pinellas County, it was hard enough to lose a brother in the mass shooting. It was even harder to lose multiple friends too, including other members of the deaf community, which she described as extremely close-knit.
“One I grew up with — playing soccer and basketball with,” Brooks said. “The other one was a deaf interpreter like me.”
Her hope is that America won’t become numb to mass shootings and gun violence.
“We are so focused on, you know, cancer and, you know, different kinds of illnesses that we’re trying to prevent, but why can’t we do the same for guns?” Brooks said.
She plans to become more involved in pushing for the changes that she believes will prevent future shootings.
“When I saw about Sandy Hook, when I saw about Uvalde, Parkland — of course, my heart broke for them, but you know, it really hits home when it happens to you — in my community,” she continued. “There’s just no words. It’s just devastating. It’s just heartbreaking. Unfortunate.”
