Learning Curves: The pain, grief and kindness that follows a school shooting

Hi,

At about 1:30 p.m. last Tuesday, Maryann Struman, our FreepNow director, emailed a few Free Press staffers about reports of a shooting at Oxford High School — just north of Lake Orion and southeast of Flint. The reports were still early and we had no idea what would come of them.

I filled up my water bottle, packed an extra layer for the cold and rushed to Oxford. The first thing I noticed when I got there was the traffic. The town's main artery, M-24, was clogged with cars trying to turn onto the road to the high school.

Behind the steering wheel and mostly alone in their cars, I saw the unmistakable faces of scared adults. If they were parents or caregivers of Oxford High School students, some had likely texted or waited on the phone with their teenager through the deadly attack.

And, now we know: Four families will never hear from their teen again. Madisyn Baldwin, 17, Justin Shilling, 17, Tate Myre, 16, and Hana St. Juliana, 14, all died in the Nov. 30 shooting.

Oxford is the first school shooting I've covered in my four years as an education reporter.

It's the first time I've seen so many police cars surround the perimeter of a school, a place I've always believed should exist, in part, to make children feel safe. It was the first time I've had to talk to students about the horror they felt in the moments of chaos echoing through their classrooms and hallways.

And it was the first time a teenager described to me the pain she felt in the moment she'd learned she had lost a friend in a mass shooting. Julia Begley, 14, told me that her friend Hana made paper cranes for her Oxford classmates and teachers. She was funny and she was kind-hearted.

"She knew exactly what to say to make the class laugh," Julia said.

We know that what happened at Oxford has sparked grief and fear in parents, caregivers, students and educators across Michigan and even across the nation.

My colleague Kristen Shamus on Twitter wrote of those complicated feelings consuming parents and kids, "My terrified 13-year-old left school early today because rumors of a shooting threat had her convinced she was in danger. This is America, and we're not OK."

Our friends at Chalkbeat put together a comprehensive resource list for families struggling after Oxford.

As journalists, we tend to look for solutions to complex problems. After the shooting, we've heard calls for more mental health support for struggling students and assessments of what went wrong.

But finding a solution for grief is impossible. Healing isn't linear.

With all that said, I want to remind you today that love and kindness is still around us, even in life's darker moments. I'm going to spend the rest of this newsletter focusing on the kind, profound and touching moments we have witnessed after Oxford.

#maddymatters

Reporter Nushrat Rahman reports that Madisyn Baldwin's family is asking the community to "spread acts of kindness" in Madisyn's name with the hashtag #maddymatters.

Nushrat writes:

I've seen people writing about holding the door open in honor of Madisyn, paying for a stranger's Starbucks order, and buying a stack of gift cards to hand out.

'My sweet baby is HOME'

Sandy Cunningham sounds elated in this GoFundMe update posted Dec. 5: ""My sweet baby is HOME ❤️❤️❤️❤️ GOD IS GOOD."

That's because Phoebe Arthur, her 14-year-old daughter, had just been released from Hurley Medical Center in Flint.

Phoebe was wounded in the Nov. 30 attack. She's still recovering, but her mom wrote that she's made progress.

"She sat up, made it to a chair, walked, did laps around the ped(iatric) unit. She only had one awful pain breakdown today, those being the moments we don’t share. Along with all the doctors, nurses, psychologist ... she made it through a big day," Cunningham wrote in an update posted Nov. 3.

Detroit Lions dedicate win to Oxford

On Sunday the Detroit Lions won in a last-second victory against the Minnesota Vikings, my colleague Jeff Seidel wrote.

Team coach Dan Campbell held up a football after the game and said, "“This game ball goes to the whole Oxford community — all those who were affected."

And then he read out the four names of the students Oxford lost and the seven injured.

Players also wore Oxford T-shirts during warmups. And they held a moment of silence before the game.

Michigan football also beat Iowa in the Big Ten championship game, 42-3, on Saturday in Indianapolis. The Wolverines scored 42 points, the number worn by Tate Myre. The Wolverines were wearing a commemorative patch on the right shoulder of their uniforms — a maize-colored block O with Myre's No. 42 and four hearts to honor all four fatalities in Tuesday's attack.

And that's it for today's Learning Curves.

We're headed into the holidays, which I know can be stressful for many. I hope you all get a moment of peace in the coming weeks. I'm headed out of town this weekend to bake cherry wink cookies with my mom and I can't wait to leave the kitchen crusted with flour and sugar (just kidding, Mom, I always help clean up!).

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'Til next time,

Lily Altavena, educational equity reporter

Email: laltavena@freepress.com

Twitter: @lilyalta

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pain, grief and kindness follows Oxford High shooting