By Caleigh Bartash
Mourn the dead. And fight like hell for the living.
Those words formed a stark message across Michelle Appel’s Zoom background Monday as she presented the University of Maryland’s fourth annual Day of Mourning.
Appel, a member of the President’s Commission on Disability Issues, helped lead and organize the event in remembrance of filicide victims. In the disability community, the term filicide is used when caretakers or family members kill a person with a disability.
Seven volunteers read over 100 names of the disabled people killed by family members last year while American Sign Language interpreters and a transcriptionist translated.
Before honoring this year’s victims, Appel gave an introduction and recited “Killing Words” by Zoe Gross, a piece that describes the positive press given to families and caretakers who kill people with disabilities.
“We used to, at these events, read all of the victims’ names. But we can’t do that anymore because it would take too long,” Appel said.
Before this year, the vigil was held in person on the UMD campus. Seventh year graduate student Ira Kraemer attended the event for the second year in a row but said the day should not exist.
“There has been too much mourning this year, too much blatant open ableism by abled people, too much apathy for disabled lives,” Kraemer said in an email. “I showed up because I know many other disabled people who shouldn’t have to keep grieving. We shouldn’t have to have this day.”
The day was especially difficult because so many disabled people have died due to COVID-19, said Kraemer, a member of the PCDI student advisory group.
Nobody would remember the filicide victims without the disabled community, said Kraemer.
“It’s important because being disabled is not a tragedy, but it is seen as one and treated as one by broader society,” Kraemer said. “It is important because the parents who murdered their disabled kids are being sympathized with instead of the disabled kid who was murdered.”
Lauren Eng, a senior information science major, attended the vigil for the first time and said she did not expect to hear about so many victims.
“It was really sobering. And I had not realized how big of an issue this was,” Eng said. “It was just a lot more names than I had been anticipating.”
Event co-organizer Alex Peterson said 45 people registered for the event on Zoom, a number quadruple that of the attendees from last year. One returning guest, Chaplain Tarif Shraim, led the group in a moment of silence.
Peterson said the purpose of the event was to empower communities and honor those who have been lost.
“Even though it’s brief and we’re just reading their names and their date of birth, we’re saying them out loud,” said Peterson, the graduate assistant for PCDI. “And I think there’s power in that.”
The event ended after Appel recited the poem “You Get Proud by Practicing” by Laura Hershey. But the fight is not over for those in the disability community, Kraemer said.
Kraemer questioned what the Day of Mourning would look like next year, wondering who would grieve for disabled people lost to the pandemic.
“Will it just be us again?” Kraemer asked.
Featured photo: Screenshot of Michelle Appel during Zoom vigil. Caleigh Bartash/Stories Beneath the Shell