They lost loved ones to tragedy. Here's what they have to say to Buffalo, Uvalde

They are known in the aggregate, linked by the unspeakable — Sandy Hook Families, Parkland Families, Columbine Families — but each person who lost a loved one to tragedy, whether mass shootings or 9/11, has walked down a path that is personal and individual and unlike any other.

They call themselves members of a club no one ever wants to join, with chapters in California and Florida, Pittsburgh and Colorado. In recent months, the club grew by 10 in Buffalo, by 22 in Uvalde, Texas, and by at least seven in Highland Park, Illinois. And on. And on.

In recent weeks, we've spoken to those family members who came before Buffalo, and to those who have counseled and helped them as they faced that first impossible year. What awaits, in Buffalo and beyond, is A Year of Firsts Without, when lives are lived with aching hearts and so much missing.

Father's Day without Dad. Birthdays without the birthday girl. Thanksgiving without Mom.

Here, in excerpts of longer interviews, is what they told us.

'After the casseroles stop coming'

Sallie Lynch works for Tuesday's Children, a nonprofit formed after 9/11 and dedicated to long-term healing of victims of terrorism, military conflict or mass violence. Tuesday's Children has gathered 15 "club" members into a coalition — Survivors of Tragedy Outreach Program, or STOP — which this spring created a survivor-to-survivor network to see to the long-term healing of families in Buffalo and beyond.

'Who am I without my loved one in my life?'

When she was 20, Heidi Horsley lost her 17-year-old brother, Scott, and her cousin, when their car exploded. She founded the Open to Hope Foundation, which has a trauma-related podcast and television show in New York City.

'Our lives have been turned upside-down and inside-out'

Linda Beigel Schulman's son, Scott, was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. He was a geography teacher and cross-country coach. She founded the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund, which promotes sensible gun laws and sends at-risk children and those affected by gun violence to sleep-away camp.

Fistfights at spinning class

Maggie Feinstein didn’t lose a family member in the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, but, she said: “We say that when it happened, you had to wait for the 0% chance you didn't know somebody because that's how our community is. It's a very tight-knit community.” She now heads the 10.27 Healing Partnership, which grew out of the response to the attack, in which 11 congregation members were murdered.

'Burying a beautiful 6-year-old girl'

Heather Dearman's cousin, Ashley, lost so much in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting in July 2012. She was left a paraplegic and her 6-year-old daugher, Veronica, and unborn child were killed. Dearman stepped in to help, and now runs the 7/20 Memorial Foundation, which helped to create the memorial to those lost, and which continues its Paper Crane Peace Project, assembling wreaths of paper cranes that are sent to communities affected by gun violence.

'We were all changed differently'

In Thousand Oaks, California, Michael Morisette’s daughter, Kristina, was killed in the 2018 Borderline Bar & Grill shooting. He said the compassion he received after Kristina’s death — all those meals, all those people standing by to comfort him and his family — made him want to be there for others. He now counsels families at Give an Hour, the group that counseled him, a group that helps military, veterans and their families.

'A tragedy is like having a dark varnish over everything'

Scarlett Lewis' 6-year-old son, Jesse, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, with 19 first-grade classmates and six school staff members 11 days before Christmas in 2012. In the fog of her grief, Lewis found three words Jesse had written on the chalkboard in their Connecticut farmhouse — Nurturing, Healing, Love — rendered in his 6-year-old hand as "Norurting, Helinn, Love." Those words are on a birdbath filled with rubber ducks at Jesse's grave in Zoar Cemetery, down the hill from Lewis' home. And they form the bedrock of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, a character-education curriculum now in all 50 states that focuses on creating a culture of empathy and inclusion in schools.

Reach Peter D. Kramer, a 34-year staffer, at pkramer@gannett.com or on Twitter at @PeterKramer. Read his latest stories. Local reporting like Pete's only works if subscribers support it, which you can do at www.lohud.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on New York State Team: They know what awaits Buffalo after Tops tragedy: Here's what they say