Editor’s Note: On this day, six years ago, 17 people lost their lives in a mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school. This column, written the year after that senseless tragedy, is in honor of them and all who have lost their lives to mass shootings.
A warm ocean breeze swayed palm trees as we drove west from Pompano Beach, Florida, to the resort hotel where we were staying for the weekend in March 2019. My granddaughter would be involved in dance competitions inside the hotel crowded with costumes, chatter, devoted parents, and nervous performers of all ages.
I try to miss none of the significant events my precious angel deems essential. Her fourteen-year-old Pompano toes have been tapping to the beat of the music since before she was age two. So yes, this was a “Grandma Flying Delta” worthy occasion.
As we drove toward the Coral Springs resort, the landscape transformed into streets lined with sidewalks framed in manicured perfection. Gated communities protected exquisite homes where residents walked dogs, biked, and jogged with friends. Flowers bursting in blooming color flourished under the bright Florida sunshine. As the sun melted into the horizon, a pink hue was added to an already peaceful, quiet portrait of stunning.
We made a right turn toward our hotel, and I saw a large, well-landscaped school adorned by a distinctive entrance. As the car’s lights beamed across its corner, the institution’s name was proudly displayed on a stucco facade: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Yes, we were in Parkland.
It was Friday evening, and all the students were busy with their lives somewhere other than on these grounds. The Eagles’ home was silent as if it were just another school building waiting for bustling activity to resume on Monday.
However, there wasn’t another school quite like this Parkland school anywhere. There are few schools in our country whose names evoke every emotion from love to hate, but to stand physically before this pristine white stucco structure takes the viewer beyond the headlines and the horror.
Beneath the school’s impressive entrance lay a portion of earth covered with a multitude of flowers. Above the bed of colors rose seventeen illuminated angels representing the seventeen lives lost on Valentine’s Day 2018. Three adults, six sons, and eight daughters left for school one morning and never returned home.
As we drove by the stone gates in upscale communities, many still hoisted large banners: “MSD STRONG. Our home. Our family. Our community.”
We should consider it necessary to put the same banner in front of our homes no matter where we reside because Parkland, Florida, is a member of America’s community.
However, our sense of connection can be lost when we become so quick to turn a tragedy into a political nightmare. Without thinking of parents, students, teachers, and those innocent lives lost, we can distance any and all emotion for the sake of professing our political affiliations and beliefs.
Two more students plus a grieving father died from suicide in the aftermath of that Valentine’s Day massacre. The people who walked those halls and witnessed such horror were never going to be as they once were before that fateful day. Grief counseling would be a part of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High for a long time.
Until we address the severity of stress, bullying, and mental illness thriving in our youth, and the insensitivity in our adults, we are likely to see more angels rising from the earth.
After the tragedy, I was amazed by how many people sent hate mail and showed disdain when several Parkland students protested for better gun laws. What a tragic example of how unempathetic our community’s citizens can become when we allow our political views to take precedence over compassion and kindness.
Whether one believes the students were right or wrong, their fight came from young souls trying to heal and make a difference.
As I watched my ballerina angel twirl across the floor amid hundreds of other young dancers, I thought about those missing the dance. I wondered about Alex, Cara, Gina, Alaina, Luke, Jaime, Martin, Nicholas, Helena, Joaquin, Carmen, Peter, Alyssa, and Meadow. Not so long ago, their little toes were also tapping to the beat of the music at age two, but they will never dance again.
At times, we must put away our differences and not turn every situation into a political or affiliation-based debate. We should show others that compassion, understanding, unity, and love can rise above ugliness. We must bind together to protect the innocent, our children, by becoming more thoughtful than we currently are and by providing a better sense of community in America. It is way past time.
Perhaps then we would be as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, “America Strong. Our Home. Our Family. Our Community.”
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