Things we lost in the fire

Greetings, people. Like many Barbadians, I'm still recovering from the grief, anger and pain wrought on the entire island by the desperate, criminal act of two young products of our society.

By now I'm sure you all know about the robery and fire-bombing of clothing store Campus Trendz fire on September 3 that took the lives of six young women: Nikita Belgrave, Shana Griffitth, Kelly-Ann Lynch, Pearl Cornelius, Kellishaw Oliverre and Tiffany Harding.

Although the loss of six lives in such a cruel and senseless way is more than enough, there are many other things I feel that we Bajans have lost.

For starters, we've lost our sense of security. It will be a long time before I can feel comfortable browsing the racks of a store, especially if it's one of the tiny, one-door establishments that abound in Bridgetown.

We Bajans have a lot of precepts about a whole lot of things, and most of them erroneous. "It can't happen here"; "we don't do those kinds of things" are some of the preconceived notions that have gone out the window since September 3.

Our innocence is gone, and while one can argue that that's not necessarily a bad thing, I think that's one of the things we had going for us as a nation.

To the families of the six young women, you have my deepest sympathy.