‘We got our rainbow’
Orlando remembers 49 people killed at Pulse nightclub in day of mourning and celebration
As Orlando singer Jabari Clay sang Shoshana Bean’s “This Is Me” outside Pulse on Saturday, the crowd of hundreds suddenly turned and cheered the spontaneous formation of a rainbow streaking across the eastern sky. “Looks like we got our rainbow!” said Earl Crittenden, chairman of the one PULSE Foundation board of trustees, once the song ended.
The memorial ceremony held at the scene of where 49 people were killed and scores injured five years ago was the culmination of a day of mourning and a celebration of their lives that began with 49 church bells echoing throughout downtown Orlando.
Speaker after speaker took to the podium to recount what it has been like in the half-decade since the shooting, which at the time was considered the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. For many, it was difficult to say if that lapse had been a long time or a wound that remains fresh in the city’s collective memory.
“Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Other days it feels like so long ago,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told the audience.
Crittenden and Barbara Poma, CEO of the one PULSE Foundation, used their time along
with eulogizing the 49 lives lost to update the audience of the progress being made to build a museum dedicated to the victims.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that an eventual museum at a warehouse district on Kaley Street near Interstate 4 would not break ground until a “Survivors Walkway” stretching from the club to nearby Orlando Regional Medical Center, a route taken by many who had been shot that night, is completed. The museum itself would take a year to build.
“We are the keepers of the story,” Poma said on Saturday. “But in the future, it is the memorial and museum that will continue the legacy when we’re no longer here to do so.”
Meanwhile, at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, hundreds of others piled into their socially distant seats, wearing white “We Will Not Let Hate Win” V-neck shirts and wielding handheld rainbow fans reading “Proudly.”
Back at the Pulse site, a video featuring relatives of those murdered the night of the shooting read out the names of the 49 in a six-minute moment of silence broken by periodic applause after many of the names were said.
Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the shooting, lost several friends that night, including Christopher Leinonen, whom he called, “everything I believed I didn’t deserve.”
“I made him a promise that I would never stop fighting for a world that he would be proud of,” he said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that wasn’t a promise to be fulfilled by me. It was a challenge to each and every one of us.”
Ryan Clarke, a retail manager, said he used to frequent Pulse as often as two or three times a week. He remembers the sense of family that Pulse fostered as bartenders waved hello and partygoers jived, the night lights flickering on the dance floor.
His eyes welled with tears as the mothers, fathers and nieces announced the names of the victim.
“Pulse was home for me,” he said.
49 bells toll for victims
“Akyra Monet Murray … Alejandro Barrios Martínez … Ángel Luis Candelario-Padró … Anthony Luis Laureano Disla … Antonio Davon Brown … Brenda Lee Márquez McCool … Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz.”
One by one, the names of the 49 victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting were read Saturday by some of the families, each name separated by the toll of a church bell that echoed throughout the rotunda at Florida United Methodist Church.
The ceremony, attended by victims’ families and survivors, elected officials, and others in the community, began a long day memorializing the lives lost five years ago, snuffed out during Latin Night at the club.
Olga Disla, Anthony Laureano Disla’s mother, began the reading of the names. She questioned whether her voice broke as she read her son’s name. It didn’t.
In the five years since the shooting, she moved from Puerto Rico to Orlando to be closer to where Laureano Disla is buried. Her youngest son, they shared a special bond. He would call her nearly every day to check on her, and she supported his passion for dance, performing as Alanis Laurell, his drag queen stage name.
Though she speaks about him calmly and with barely a tremor, she says his loss still remains. But she remembers something he would tell her during hard times: “Forget about the bad and keep going.”
“I would hear him in my mind saying, ‘Mami, keep going. Keep going,’ ” Disla said with a light laugh. “There are days I can, and there are days I can’t. But his voice follows me; if I look at myself in the mirror and my hair is messy, I can hear him say, “Nena, and that hair?’ ”
Inside the church, 49 candles were lit at the altar. Near the exit sat a bouquet of marigolds and zinnias. A small sign sitting next it said the marigolds represent grief and joy, despair and optimism, while the zinnias symbolize endurance, friendship and remembrance.
Brian Alvear, joined by his mother Mayra, gave thanks to everyone who came out.
“Long after us, those 49 names will be read out and remembered, and I take solace in that,” said Brian Alvear, whose sister, Amanda, was among those killed. Mayra Alvear added, “I do this because of my children. I will not let them die in vain. Thank you so much.
God bless you and protect you.”
Leading up to the fifth anniversary was a week of mourning as Orlandoans and community leaders reflected on the changes made after the shooting, lingering shortcomings and efforts to further memorialize the victims.
On Saturday, President Joe Biden announced he would sign legislation to make the Pulse site a national memorial, “enshrining in law what has been true since that terrible day five years ago: Pulse nightclub is hallowed ground.” And on Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis — who since last week has been lambasted by Florida’s LGBTQ+ community after, among other moves, vetoing $150,000 meant to provide counseling for survivors of the shooting — declared June 12 Pulse Remembrance Day.
Biden further called on lawmakers to vote on gun control measures such as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, establishing “red flag” laws and stripping liability protections for gun manufacturers, “to address … mass shootings and daily acts of gun violence that don’t make national headlines.”
“The State of Florida will not tolerate hatred towards the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities, and together we stand united against terrorism and hate of any kind,” the proclamation read.