Echoes

Charles O. Howard (January 31, 1961 – July 7, 1984)

Charles O. Howard (January 31, 1961 – July 7, 1984)

Charles O. Howard was an American hate-crime victim in Bangor, Maine in 1984. As Charles and a male companion, Roy Ogden, were walking down the street, three teenagers: Shawn Mabry-16, Jim Baines-15, and Daniel Ness-17, harassed Charles for being gay. The youths chased the pair, yelling homophobic epithets, until they caught Charles and threw him over the State Street Bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream, despite his pleas that he could not swim. He drowned, but his friend escaped and pulled a fire alarm. Charlie Howard's body was found by rescue workers several hours later.

Prayer to the living...

Remember your contemporaries who have passed away, and were of your age.
Remember the honours and fame they earned, the high posts they held and the beautiful bodies they possessed, and today all of them are turned to dust.
How they have left orphans and widows behind them.
No sign of them is left today, and they lie in the dark holes underneath the earth.
Picture their faces before your mind's eye and ponder.
Do not fix hopes on your wealth and do not laugh away life.
Remember how they walked and now all their joints lie separated and the tongue with which they talked lightly is eaten away by the worms and their teeth are corroded. They were foolishly providing for twenty years when even a day of their lives was not left. They never expected that death shall come to them thus at an unexpected hour.

- Ghazzali, (1058 -1111 A.D), mystic and philosopher, Islam, Sufism
Source : Essential Sufism, by James Fadiman & Robert Frager, Harper SanFrancisco, p.28

Photograph courtesy - Mr. Ravi kanth