February 14th

February 14 — few people forget the significance of the date. Valentine’s Day means different things depending on who you ask. Ask a couple in love and they’ll answer it’s a day of enamorment. Ask consumerist and capitalist America and they’ll answer it’s a good day for business. Ask someone in my community and they’ll tell you it’s a day of sorrow and mourning: it’s the day seventeen souls were taken at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

I am not a student at Stoneman Douglas, but the pain traveled a little over twenty miles and reached my campus. Like everyone else, a year ago on that date I was celebrating love with the people closest to me. Roses were being delivered, singing grams were being performed by chorus, banners of loving messages were hung at the entrance. A day that always begins with a whimsical joy which fills hearts ended with them becoming heavy and breaking. Not only were hearts broken, but minds were instilled with fear.

I was informed of the shooting through a text message sent to a group chat of close friends not long before school ended. I read the message and immediately began reading the news, but there was not much information released yet. I arrived at home with no knowledge of the severity of the circumstance. How many had been injured? Is it still on going? Has the shooter been identified? And worst of all: what was the number of casualties? Seventeen.

The next day survivors spoke at my school. Freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors alike marched to a field where speakers were set up, but their deafening emotion did not require speakers in order to be heard. With angst in their voice and tears on their cheeks, each one narrated their monstrous experience — having to hold their friends close as they trembled in fear, texting their parents “I love you” in case they did not survive, and receiving word that their friends and teachers were victims of the bestial crime. Sniffling became undeniably loud in the crowd, there was not one person whose heart remained intact. These people had become survivors in one of the most heart wrenching events in this country, and they now needed to learn how to heal from trauma.

A year later and the fear instilled by the atrocity still prevails. To ensure the safety of the students, the security at my school was heightened as precautionary measures. Even so, more than half of the student body was absent in fear of the precedent set. The energies flowing in the halls and the courtyard were haunting and eerie. If someone wished you a happy Valentine’s Day, it was said in a reluctant manner, and immediately followed by a frown. The traditional red outfits to symbolize love on its celebration day were replaced by burgundy to demonstrate solidarity, and at 10:17 a.m. an announcement by a student was made, followed by seventeen seconds of silence in honor of the seventeen victims.

It is an odd sensation to see how the rest of the country moved on, solely celebrating Valentine’s Day, while the people in my community grieve on a day eternally tainted red. We will always think of and pray for Alyssa Alhadeff (14), Scott Beigel (35), Martin Duque Anguiano (14), Nicholas Dworet (17), Aaron Feis (37), Jaime Guttenberg (14), Chris Hixon (49), Luke Hoyer (15), Cara Loughran (14), Gina Montalto (14), Joaquin Oliver (17), Alaina Petty (14), Meadow Pollack (18), Helena Ramsay (17), Alex Schachter (14), Carmen Schentrup (16), and Peter Wang (15). But thoughts and prayers are not enough, we need change. Survivors are raising their voices and demanding action that will keep not just students safe in school, but individuals everywhere in the country. Never Again.