Parkland seniors balance grief, activism as graduation nears
PARKLAND, FLA. » When a gunman killed 17 people at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, senior Chris Grady was slogging through his final few weeks before reporting for duty in the Army.
The slight, wavy-haired 19-year-old wanted to do his small part to protect troops fighting overseas, he said. But now bullets were tearing through his own suburban Florida school.
As they prepare to graduate on Sunday, the Parkland seniors are grieving from the loss of friends while navigating tough decisions about the future. For many seniors, the months since the shooting have been a blur of funerals, marches, voter-turnout events, television interviews and brushes with celebrities. Amid all that, the seniors also must decide: Should they go to college, enter the military or make a career of the antigun activism that’s already shaping Florida policy and driving a national conversation?
Today Grady spends the bulk of his time as an advocate. He is part a group of students who organized the March for Our Lives in Washington, and he’s helping shape the direction of that group’s movement. He’s struggled with whether to withdraw his Army enlistment.
“I made a commitment to this country that I take seriously, but how can I commit to protect people abroad when they’re getting shot in their classrooms said.
For others, a college path is a way to honor their fallen friends by forging on with plans made before the shooting.
Senior Tyra Hemans got her acceptance letter from Pace University in New York the same day her friends were killed. The 19-year-old was tight with shooting victims Joaquin “Guac” Oliver and Meadow Pollack.
Her college acceptance should have been marked by jumps for joy and hugs from her mother. Instead, Hemans felt numb.
But she decided to go, realizing that college and many milestones of her life will be tinged with loss.
“When I go to college, it’s going to be for Guac at home?” Grady and Meadow, and when I walk the (graduation) stage, I’m walking for them. When I get my first job, that’s Guac’s first job, that’s Meadow’s first job,” said Hemans, who wants to study business management and become a sports agent.
Eighteen-year-old Samantha Fuentes is recovering from bullet wounds in both legs and just had shrapnel removed from behind her right eye. After the shooting, she finished her senior year with online classes instead of returning to school, but she said she still planned to start college in the fall and move out of her mom’s house.
Her physical wounds are mirrored by internal changes. She stopped working at a chocolate shop because the place felt too small to her, too tight to escape.
“I’m not afraid of going back to school. I’m not afraid of schools. I don’t think you should be,” Fuentes said. “I think you should be afraid of other things — a lack of change, a lack of progress.”
Her nerves were on display at the March for Our Lives in Washington, when she vomited on stage in the middle of a speech before thousands of people. Last week, as she received a Freedom of Expression Courage Award at the PEN American gala in New York, she became tearful and nauseated. She fled the podium, then returned a few minutes later to a standing ovation.