Letter to Uvalde: We are here for you because we’ve been there | Commentary
Dear Uvalde:
Your pain is our pain. Your children are our children. Your Robb Elementary School is our Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
We are here for you because we have been there. We are sharing our experience with the aftermath of such a horrific tragedy, hoping it will help prepare you for the days, weeks, months and years of heartache ahead.
This is what the parents of Sandy Hook did for us in 2018, and for Santa Fe parents three months later. We are all family now. We can speak honestly: Your prayers were once our prayers. They have not been answered.
For your emotional well-being, do not pin your hopes on anything substantive being done in the name of your children. This nation cannot prevent the next schoolhouse massacre. People in power cannot speak civilly to each other about it. They have surrendered.
In the place of federal action on child safety that could be enacted in days, parents here enlisted in a fight that may take generations to win. You may join them, or start your own fight. Do not fear disappointment.
‘I wanted to die’
Manuel Oliver and wife Patricia will never surrender. After their 17-year-old son, Joaquin, lost his life in his Parkland high school, they created the nonprofit gun-safety advocacy group Change the Ref.
This weekend Patricia was in Texas, among the protesters at the national NRA convention in Houston. Manuel, also an artist, was in Sunrise on Saturday at an emotional rally to support your families and those in Buffalo, sponsored by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and other groups.
Oliver remembers the days after the MSD shooting as a blur of well-meaning people coming at him with advice. He understands you may not be listening, but he does have something to tell you.
“There are reasons to keep living. But you need to find them. And that process takes a while,” he said. “This is my own experience, OK? I wanted to die when my son was shot. I thought there is no reason for me to be here anymore. The game is over.
“I was planning to be retired, hang out with my son, have grandkids. Not gonna happen. So, what is it that I’m gonna do? At some point during that process of not knowing, I found out that I would be more useful here representing my son. As a dad, I have a responsibility to be supporting my son. Joaquin’s dad is still alive. I have to keep on being Joaquin’s dad. I’m not the victim here. Joaquin is the victim. It’s a process. It takes time. And hopefully you will find it.”
As in Uvalde, there were adults killed while trying to protect students in the Parkland shooting. Athletic director and coach Chris Hixon was shot after confronting the killer in his school. His wife, Debbi, a teacher and coach at South Broward High School, channeled her grief and anger into a successful run for the county school board.
Debbi Hixon also is a relentless advocate of gun-safety efforts and spoke at Saturday’s rally in Sunrise, a dozen miles south of MSD. Afterward, she and Oliver exchanged an emotional hug. She explained how she continues to work through her sorrow.
“I have to honor Chris’ memory every day, and he didn’t give up,” Hixon said, her voice breaking. “He ran into that building to save those kids. It’s my mission now to try to make a difference in his memory.
“We were educators. All gun violence is bad, but the school shootings, they take a different toll on you, because they should be safe places. We are harboring anger and hate in our youth, and now we make it easy for them to purchase two assault weapons and 1,200 rounds of ammunition? How the hell does that happen? I can’t give up. I can’t.”
The kids will lead
Your older children may want to step into the leadership void to work toward a solution with existing advocacy groups or by forming their own. Their intentions will be mischaracterized. They will be mocked by adults.
Holding a homemade anti-gun violence poster at the Sunrise Amphitheater on Saturday, Siena Berardi, 22, of Sunrise, was back at the same spot where, in 2012, she took part in a vigil for the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The 12-year-old Berardi was one of several students who read victims’ names aloud.
Her advice to young people in Uvalde: “The first step is to heal. They should take time to grieve. Then do what you can. As soon as you become voting age, vote for people you believe in. And keep fighting the fight.”
Berardi believes that young people will inspire fundamental gun-safety changes in her lifetime, acknowledging it defies all evidence to the contrary.
“I do believe there will be a future where, when I have my own kids, I can send them off to school and not have to worry about them not coming home. I believe that,” she says.
Manuel Oliver seconds that emotion: “The kids, not the politicians, they don’t want this for their future. And at some point, they will be in charge. Expecting [politicians] to solve the problem, I think, is wrong. The kids will solve the problem, with our support.”
There will be another school shooting in America, and you will want to have a team of therapy dogs ready. We have had our dogs and their therapist partners on stand-by for four years.
When the horror of the Robb Elementary School massacre was revealed, teams at the local chapter of Canine Assisted Therapy mobilized to have dogs at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland before students and teachers arrived the next morning.
Some of the teams were among those who also were at MSD immediately after our shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018. And that’s the thing: Your therapists will need to be made of the right stuff.
“Our handlers, the ones who go in with the therapy dogs, I don’t think they realized what they were in for,” says Elise Samet, program manager at CAT, a volunteer-based nonprofit. “This was something that was so different and so heavy and so close to home. We were so glad we were there to support, but we weren’t emotionally prepared.”
Over the years, CAT has amassed a roster of more than 100 teams of dogs and therapists. Samet says that while her chapter only serves the tri-county South Florida region, they are happy to speak with you about setting up your own teams. Samet says you can call them at 954-990-5175.
Soul-searching moment
You will persevere — even in the absence of reason. It is the only way. It is the definition of faith.
Rev. Michael A. Souckar, pastor at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Coral Springs, says the church shares a physical and emotional proximity to Stoneman Douglas High School, with some of his parishioners having been directly affected by the shooting there. St. Andrew also operates a school with students pre-K through 8th grade.
He acknowledges there is a cynicism about messages of faith delivered in the aftermath of mass shootings.
“Words of concern, expressions of thoughts and prayers, they seem to be a little more diluted each time, because they happen so often,” Souckar says. “We all have to do a little soul searching, individually and as a society. We need to ask ourselves, ‘Why are these things happening? Why is there so much violence and lack of peace in the great American community and society that we are?
In his first Sunday service since the Uvalde shooting, Souckar will deliver a sermon on the Feast of the Ascension, which celebrates Jesus’ ascension to heaven.
“That message is that Christ never abandons us by ascending to the Father, that he is still with us through the holy spirit,” Souckar says. “In this context [of the Uvalde shooting], it’s that even in the midst of this suffering, even in the face of evil, Christ has not abandoned us. The message is that Christ triumphs over evil.”
Your city changed
Life will go on in Uvalde, though it may be an emotional ghost town for a while. Maybe forever. The name of your city means something different now. We’ve gotten used to the widening of the eyes when the name “Parkland” comes up in conversation. People mean well.
You may tie ribbons on your trees in memory of the children. Ours were orange. The ribbons will be meaningful and unifying for the community, then they will shrivel and fade in the Texas sun. It’s OK. No disrespect.
Our ribbons are in memory of Jaime Guttenberg, a 14-year-old killed at Stoneman Douglas High School. Her father started a nonprofit, Orange Ribbons for Jaime, which raises money for interests Jaime loved. Seeing these ribbons, however faded, leaves Jaime’s father, Fred, “emotional.”
“It is a reminder of days since Jaime was killed. I truly appreciate how people refuse to forget,” he says.
In downtown Fort Lauderdale, more than 20 miles from Parkland, a massive oak tree is still looped with a once-vibrant orange ribbon. Nearby is a For Sale sign.
“We were showing the house, and one gentleman asked about the ribbon,” says homeowner Aly Spence. “He wasn’t from here, so I got to tell the story. That felt good.”
You will want to destroy the building at Robb Elementary School. You’re likely to be told it is a crime scene and cannot be demolished until an investigation is complete. For that reason, the 1200 Building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is still standing. It’s a terrible reminder for the community — but someday it will come down.
Your police response has been questioned and there will be an investigation, possibly charges. It took a year to charge the armed deputy at our school. His trial has still not happened. Another terrible reminder.
Unlike yours, our gunman was captured. It’s a mixed blessing. He pleaded guilty to his crimes. But the punishment phase of his trial, happening now, has been difficult on many, especially the families of those whose lives were taken from them.
Someday we will see justice delivered. A jail door will slam shut forever, or there will be an execution. We finally will be able to say something was done.
Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com.
