A Perspective Story on MSD and Remembering 3 Years Later
On February 14, 2018 17 students and teachers were brutally murdered inside of their high school in one of the worst mass shootings in modern American history. I, like most of the victims, was a freshman at the time.
The shooting rocked the nation and sparked the ever powerful march for our lives movement. While activism gripped the country and created a better understanding of gun control and the immediate need for it, grief and tragedy still hung heavy over Broward County.
I remember where I was when I heard the news. I was on the bus ride home and my mom had told me to take the main roads and run because Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) has an active shooter and they don’t know where he is. I remember coming home and watching the news and watching as the casualty count grew throughout the night.
I felt numb and empty, yet so heavy I couldn’t leave my chair. I remember when they announced the casualty that placed MSD over Columbine. That felt like the real nail in the coffin for me and I just kept thinking ‘we’re more than Columbine’.
Through the night the count got higher and higher and when my dad hugged me goodnight I broke down in sobs. Anyone who lived in Broward would have told you that the next day was thick. There was no joy or laughter, just anger and misery, it felt empty.
A girl in one of my classes lost 6 people all at once, another lost 2, and the death count hadn’t even finished yet. I hadn’t heard back from one of my friends and I just kept imagining them in one of those videos that echoes in my mind of the shots ringing out in the hallways.
I was one of the driving forces behind DBHS walking out, so of course I remember. I remember the pure anger and resentment I felt for Deerfield after we were expected to just watch and contribute nothing.
I remember the threats that came after, and how our school of over 2,000 was reduced to somewhere between 500, because someone had said that we were next.
I’m a senior now, just like Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque, Jamie Guttenberg, Cara Loughran, Gina Monatalto, Alaina Petty, Alex Schacter, Luke Hoyer, and Peter Wang would’ve been. I still think about what their senior years would’ve been like.
I think about the horror they must have gone through. It feels insane to me that this happened years ago and not yesterday. My class (21), is going to be the last class to be in high school during MSD.
After we graduate there will be high schoolers who never experienced the sheer terror of the day while being the age of majority of the victims and wondering if your friend was one of them.. There will be no more kids who remembered how their schools administration reacted, remembered getting locked in their schools or hurrying home because no one knew where the shooter was.
We will be the last class to have experienced what going to school was like before the shooting. We are the last class to have been able to think of MSD and instead of the heartbreaking horror that occurred within those walls, to simply think of it as the school that district competitions were held at.
To this day if I think about it for too long I feel like I’m going to cry. The country is forever changed and so am I.
It’s because of MSD that I realized how important gun control was and what woke me up to the fact that shootings like these are nothing new, the only thing different is it was down the street from me.
I still dedicate my time to educating myself and working on what I can for gun control. We as a district, a county, and a country need to continue to work on and improve our gun control laws.
As we round the corner to the 3 year anniversary of this horrible act of hate, that took place on the one day of the year dedicated to love, we must remember and continue to honor Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Duque, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jamie Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsey, Alex Schacter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang. Say their names, never forget.
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