1 year later, a day of love, grief in Parkland
Some prayed, some planted flowers at memorials as the Florida community remembered the victims of the nation’s deadliest school shooting.
PARKLAND, Fla. — On a day nobody wanted to remember — or forget — several people in maroon Tshirts emblazoned with #MSDStrong found their way Thursday to a place of solace: a flower garden outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that, at the anniversary of the nation’s deadliest school shooting, has sprouted to celebrate life.
A paramedic planted flowers in little plastic pots. A woman knelt to drop off a bouquet. A teenager strummed his guitar and sang. Then, he wept.
At 10:17 a.m., the time the local school district set to commemorate the 17 lives lost on Feb. 14, 2018, a man took off his purple cap.
“Moment of silence,” he said.
The people in the crowd bowed their heads.
Thursday could not possibly be a normal day in Parkland, Fla., where a still-grieving community coped by embracing the pain of it all.
Stoneman Douglas scheduled a “day of service and love.” Teachers organized community service projects, but attendance was voluntary. School buses arrived in the morning nearly empty. After early dismissal, students with school IDs hanging around their necks — a requirement since the shooting — streamed by the flower garden. Most hugged. A few cried. Therapy dogs brought in to help students heal last year came back down from Philadelphia for the anniversary and frolicked around the teenagers’ legs.
“After here, we’re going to the beach,” said Julia Brighton, 16, a sophomore who was in the first classroom attacked last year. Two of her best friends, Alyssa Alhadeff and Gina Montalto, were killed. So was her neighbor, Alex Schachter. Julia said she could not see herself going to school Thursday — only spending time with friends.
“Whenever I’m alone, I get in my head. It’s like having a weight on you,” she said. “I surround myself with a lot of positive people.”
In the evening, a vigil was scheduled at nearby Pine Trails Park, an echo of
“Whenever I’m alone, I get in my head. It’s like having a weight on you.”
Julia Brighton, 16, a sophomore who was in the first classroom attacked
the one a year ago, when the sound of the gunfire was still fresh. Churches, synagogues and mosques around Broward County planned religious services. In Washington, Sen. Rick Scott, who was Florida’s governor last year, recited the victims’ names on the Senate floor.
Outside Stoneman Douglas, news crews lined up to broadcast from the scene. Survivors suffering from the lingering effects of trauma had asked that media helicopters, whose rotors trigger reminders of the day of the shooting, stay away, and they did.
Some students gathered for private moments of remembrance. Ronit Reoven, an advanced placement psychology teacher who lost one student, Carmen Schentrup, and had three others injured, had to pick up platters for a picnic that her students from that day organized at a nearby park. The group has gathered periodically over the past year, over doughnuts, sushi and Mexican food, she said.
“Someone can say, ‘I had a bad dream,’ and they all get each other,” Reoven said.
Her departure to the picnic kept getting delayed by reporters asking about the memorial garden she planted with one of her students, Tori Gonzalez, and by students and parents wrapping her in bear hugs. “I just can’t believe it’s been a year, because it still feels fresh,” she said.
Jon Faber, 50, reminded others in the community that Reoven, 47, saved the life of his son’s best friend: She tied a tourniquet on Ben Wikander’s arm using a baby blanket she used in her classroom to cover a Keurig coffee machine.
“It’s not normal, for 17 people to die in school,” Faber said.