‘She has all of us’
Community memorializes student.
SANTA FE, Texas — Unlike the others who were gunned down at a Texas high school, Pakistani exchange student Sabika Sheikh didn’t have family in the U.S. to plan her funeral.
But that didn’t stop her adopted community. The 17-year-old, who had been attending classes at Santa Fe High School since last August, was honored at her funeral Sunday afternoon at a mosque in suburban Houston.
The Islamic Society for Greater Houston planned the service and opened it to the public, leading to an overflowing crowd. It was the first funeral for any of the 10 killed in Friday’s shooting.
“She doesn’t have any family here, but she has all of us and this whole community that is mourning,” said MJ Khan, president of the organization. “We are all there to be her family.”
She had been staying with a host family that lives near the high school and was due back home in Pakistan in just a few weeks for the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. As those in the community walked into the mosque, many greeted the teen’s host family with hugs and words of support.
Jason Cogburn, her host father, told stories of Sheikh’s potential and how different her culture was from Texas. They learned from each other, and his family even fasted with her during Ramadan. One thing united them more than anything, he said: love.
“We loved her and she loved us,” he said, adding the “root of our issues is love. Because when people love each other, these kinds of things don’t happen.”
Cogburn’s wife, Joleen, and daughter, Jaelyn, talked about the close bond they formed with the teen over the six months she stayed in their home. The family thanked her family in Pakistan for giving them a small amount of time with the teen.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the teen’s aspirations of becoming a diplomat for her country in the U.S. will always live on.
“Even through her death, she will continue to be a diplomat. Even in her death, she is pulling the relationships between Pakistan and the United States, specifically the Houston area, even closer,” he said.
Her body will be taken to Pakistan, where her family will also hold a service.
Many in the Santa Fe area aimed to find solace in Sunday services.
Interim Pastor Jerl Watkins had planned the morning sermon at Arcadia First Baptist Church to be geared toward graduating high school seniors. Instead, he had to preach to pews of grieving Santa Fe residents still questioning how it was possible that their small town could become the scene of the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
“We have fallen away from God,” Watkins said. “God is not a genie that we can rub from a magic lamp.”
The church invited 10 crisis-trained chaplains from the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team to help Santa Fe residents heal. There are more than 3,000 chaplains with the non-denominational Christian organization.
Gov. Greg Abbott and his wife, Cecilia, attended the service and met with survivors of the shooting and members of the community, the governor’s second trip to Santa Fe.
Abbott hugged grieving parishioners and spoke with survivors, including Monica Bracknell, an 18-year-old senior at Santa Fe High School. Surrounded by cameras, Bracknell told the governor she doesn’t believe the shooting should be turned into a political battle over gun control.
Meanwhile, authorities were still hoping to find a motive in the shooting and whether anyone else knew or helped suspect Dimitrios Pagourtzis in the attack.
Pagourtzis’ family released a statement Saturday saying they were cooperating with authorities but were just as “shocked and confused as anyone else.” The comments were the first since authorities say the teen took his father’s shotgun and .38 revolver and opened fire Friday morning.
“We are saddened and dismayed,” the family said. “We extend our most heartfelt prayers and condolences to all of the victims.”
The family of one victim said their daughter was targeted because she had rejected Pagourtzis’ attempts to date her. The mother of Shana Fisher, 16, who was killed in the attack, said the shooting followed months of advances from Pagourtzis and came just days after Fisher embarrassed him in front of others by telling him she wouldn’t go out with him.