How a Pulse nightclub survivor learned to forgive
ORLANDO, FLA. Ever since the massacre at a gay nightclub a year ago, Demetrice Naulings positions himself in bed when he goes to sleep so he has a view of his apartment’s front door in case anybody tries to get in.
Darkness often takes him back to that moment when gunshots shattered a night of drinking and dancing during Latin Night at the Pulse club in Orlando.
“That is a flashback that gets me every time,” Naulings said recently.
He escaped, but he lost friend Eddie Justice, who was among the 49 people killed after gunman Omar Mateen started firing a little after 2 a.m. on June 12, 2016. Dozens more were wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Naulings and Justice took refuge in a bathroom, but Naulings decided it was a mistake to stay. Justice begged him not to let go of his hand, and they ran out of the bathroom holding hands. But in the panicked crowd of 300 people trying to flee, Naulings let go. He made it out alive. Justice did not.
The massacre shocked a world in which mass shootings happen constantly. Mateen, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, was killed in a shootout with police after a three-hour standoff.
About nine months later, in February, Naulings heard that Mateen’s wife had been charged with aiding him and obstructing the investigation. Noor Salman has pleaded not guilty but remains in jail awaiting trial.
It dawned on Naulings that the four-year-old son of Mateen and Salman would likely grow up not knowing his parents.
“I lost a best friend, and now that kid lost a mother and father. And I felt I had to forgive on his behalf,” Naulings said.
“Because you can only imagine having your mother taken away from you at a young age, how much hate you will have against everyone.”
Naulings sometimes imagines what he would say to Mateen’s son: “You know what? I forgive your father. It’s not your fault.”
He said he would not want the boy “to grow up with the same hate that his father had in him.”