On the night of June 17, a gunman opened fire in a church basement in Charleston. Nine people died. Five survived. Survivors and families tell their stories of faith and forgiveness
He did not kiss her goodbye that day.
- THE QUALITY OF MERCY
BY NANCY GIBBS - WILL THE ACCUSED KILLER GET THE DEATH PENALTY?
BY JAY NEWTON-SMALL - A GRIEVING CHURCH STRUGGLES WITH THE SPOTLIGHT
BY MAYA RHODAN - SIGNS OF CHANGE IN CHARLESTON
BY JOHN HUEY
Anthony and Myra Thompson never let much time pass without sharing an affectionate touch or warm embrace. This was one reason for their resilient marriage. Another was mutual respect: they trusted and believed in each other enough to speak honestly. When she thought he was being prideful, she said so: “Who do you think you are?”
Anthony chuckles as he remembers.
In restaurants—like the place downtown where he’s sitting and talking now, for instance—he and his wife shared their plates. They shared interests too, and the pastimes they did not share, they cheerfully tolerated. They shared a strong Christian faith that was the foundation of their lives. Anthony answered a midlife calling to become a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church. Later, Myra felt the Lord’s summons to become a minister too. Anthony hoped that he could persuade her to leave the African Methodist Episcopal Church, but he soon realized she was too loyal. So he was content to enjoy the hours they spent discussing Scripture and commiserating over the often wayward, headstrong creatures they were given to shepherd.
That day (the day he did not kiss her goodbye) was a humid day in June when Myra asked Anthony to review her Bible—study plans for what seemed like the hundredth time. She was, he says, “a perfectionist. That’s the word.” Everything was just so in the Thompson house, spotless, gleaming. Myra, too, was radiant that day. “She had this glow about her. I don’t know how else to put it,” he says. “She was glowing, and I wanted to reach out and touch her, but for some reason, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t make myself reach out to her.”
He tells this calmly, but with intensity. After that frozen moment, Anthony had something to do in another room of the house. When Myra called out that it was time for her to leave for church, he shouted back to her: Wait. Hold on. Be right there. But before he could return, Anthony heard the door close and she was gone.
From a report by Detective Eric Tuttle of the Charleston police department: “I arrived at the incident location, 110 Calhoun Street, at about 21:40 hours … I then observed a black male running toward the church as a patrolman tried to intervene. I tried to speak with the gentleman, who said that his wife, Myra Thompson … was located inside of the church. I advised him that he would not be able to enter the church at this time and that the situation was very fluid.”
This scene doesn’t figure in Anthony’s account of that day, though he speaks of June 17 at length while his crab cake sits untouched on the plate in front of him. He doesn’t mention his frantic dash up Calhoun Street through the jam of police cruisers with their lights flashing, or the cop hurrying over to stop him, or the detective blocking his path and saying something about a very fluid situation. He doesn’t mention the fear, the anguish, the shock. Perhaps he would have talked about these things four months ago, when summer was coming down thick and sweaty over Charleston and that day was still a jagged wound. But the air is soft with the melancholy of autumn now, the pain is more of a vise and less of a dagger, and what he chooses to remember—if memory is even a choice—is Myra radiant just beyond his helpless reach, and the door closing.
HEAR ANTHONY THOMPSON TALK ABOUT WHAT COMES NEXT:
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