It has been a long year since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla, and many are taking time Feb. 14 to remember the 17 lives that were lost.
Five of the 17 victims killed were Jewish; students Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, Jaime Guttenberg, 14, Meadow Pollock, 18, and Alex Schachter, 14, as well as 35-year old geography teacher Scott Beigel.
On Feb. 12, Alhadeff’s mother, Lori wrote her daughter an emotional Valentine’s Day letter remembering that day and updating her on what’s happened since then.
“Valentine’s Day is now about memories,” Alhadeff recalled in the letter to her daughter. “Today, like all days, I remember. I remember you weren’t looking forward to going to school that day. Like many 14-year-old girls, you wanted a Valentine and were disappointed that you didn’t have one. High school love is magic. I was 14 once and those butterflies had whirled inside of me too.”
She continued, “I remember the golden gift bag I gave you that morning. It held a pair of diamond earrings to make you feel pretty, a chocolate bar to make you smile, and hair ties so you wouldn’t ask for mine…You said you were ready to go to school after that. You opened the car door. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I love you, too,’ you said. Valentine’s Day. The last time I saw you alive.”
Alhadeff added that after the shooting, her family became gun-safety advocates and she ran for and became school board president. She also started a non-profit called Make Our Schools Safe and a law was named in New Jersey called “Alyssa’s Law.”
The Chabad of Parkland is holding a yahrzeit event Feb. 14 called “A Little Light Dispels Much Darkness” to honor and remember those lost a year ago. Shabbat candles will be lit and decorated with the help of artist Gary Rosenthal so that their legacy can continue “to burn brightly.”
Jewish English and journalism teacher Sarah Lerner, also shared her feelings a year after losing two of her students, Guttenberg and Pollack.
“On Rosh Hashana, I asked my rabbi if it would be O.K. to say Kaddish, the memorial prayer. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to those whose immediate family member had died,” she told the New York Times. “He’s like, ‘Of course it’s appropriate, Sarah. They meant so much to you.’ It was just so awful, to say it for people who shouldn’t have gone so young and shouldn’t have gone that way.”
Lerner, 38, who is also the yearbook adviser, said this year has taken a toll on everyone in the community. Some haven’t even had the chance to mourn.
“Last night I got a call from a former student. It was almost 11 and she texted me, ‘Are you up?’ She’s isolated because she’s far from home, and she hasn’t had a second to stop and process.”
Fred Guttenberg, the father of Jaime shared photos on Twitter of the two of them recounting their last day together.
“Exactly one year ago, to the minute at around 7am, I sent two kids to school. Only my son Jesse came home,” he wrote. “I am forever haunted by my memory of the morning, rushing my kids out the door rather than getting one last minute. Did I say I love you? It was not the last time I was supposed to see Jaime… I will be visiting her today at the cemetary. Jaime, I love you forever and miss you every second of every day.”
Guttenberg has said he’s been advocating for gun safety regulations every day since the shooting.
Meadow Pollack’s father, Andrew has done the same. Pollack resigned from the M.S.D. Public Safety Commission in May 2018 to focus on seeking justice for those who have died from the shooting and getting Broward School Board members elected who will “Keep our schools safe.”
“Everyday hurts the same as the first,” Pollack wrote on Twitter Feb. 14. “My life will never be the same without you, but I’ve been fighting everyday to make sure this never happens again. I promise you I’ll #FixIt.”
“Debbie, I never thought 10 years after I lost you, I would lose our son Alex sending him to high school. Please take care of him. I love you,” Max Schachter wrote on Twitter sharing a photo of two tombstones.
“There is no such thing as just another mass shooting,” Scott Beigel’s mother Linda said in a video. “Nobody should lose a child, nobody should lose a family member nobody should lose a friend or coworker to gun violence.”
