FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) – They were baptized by gunfire in their first year, united as they spent hours hiding under desks, inextricably linked by the tragedy. For Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s 2021 class, high school would never be about Friday night football and first innocent kisses.
Seventeen students and staff were killed in the 2018 Valentine’s Day shooting. While Parkland students struggled to define high school beyond the tragedy, their senior year was punctuated by the coronavirus pandemic, taking their lives once again.
Most are isolated at home on a computer, their normal routines altered and their support systems fragmented.
The shooting catapulted some students into the spotlight as they gathered for gun control and fell on the cover of Time magazine. But that was just a piece of the experience of those who lived in this rich and palm-fringed suburb. In the shadows, many sometimes struggle to manage daily life.
His only full year at Stoneman Douglas was his second year – a time marked by fire alarms and fireworks. Many students felt re-traumatized whenever they passed the now isolated freshman building, the location of the shooting.
Abby Price’s best friend, Alyssa Alhadeff, was killed that day.
“I struggled every morning to wake up and go to school where I lost so many friends,” said the 17-year-old. “I struggled to find a purpose to just do simple life tasks without my best friend at my side.”
The two were inseparable as sisters, playing on the same football team and even having a birthday. They dreamed of what the college would bring while listening to Miley Cyrus’s song “The Climb”.
Price’s family moved to North Carolina the first year, hoping for a fresh start. She was afraid of a new school and making new friends. But there was also a feeling that her life was no longer just hers, that she was creating new memories and chasing her dreams for Alyssa – for both of them.
Then the pandemic hit, forcing Price to enter the virtual school and making contact with the friends she finally made difficult.
“I started to lose myself again,” said Price.
Like millions of students across the country, proms and rallies were overlooked in the wake of the pandemic, depriving Price and the Parkland veterans once again of traditional rites of passage and a normal college experience.
Even graduation remains in limbo, like the end of his high school years ended by tragedies.
“At most, we will have a digital graduation,” said veteran Ryan Servaites. “And this will be the ceremonial end of four years of trauma.”
Servants, who hid under a chair in the auditorium for two hours while texting “I love you” to their parents, found healing in activism. He joined student-led March For Our Lives, registered voters for the first time in several states and now works on gun reform policy. He seems confident and self-confident in his passion for bringing about change, but it has been a process.
“I was trying to be an activist, while on the inside I was not doing very well with myself,” said Servaites. “I learned to cope. I learned to accept what I went through. “
Samara Barrack had a hard time connecting with friends after the shooting, saying that some colleagues have changed while dealing with the tragedy in different ways.
“I saw people who said, ‘I just need to get high’ or ‘I just need to paint’,” she said. “None of these things would help me.”
Barrack was on the cheerleading team, but the pandemic canceled most events, making it difficult to connect during practice and games. Her closest friends go to other schools, but she still longs for her senior year traditions.
“Even if I’m not their best friend, it’s an experience,” said Barrack, who instead focused on a part-time job and a fresh start at the University of Central Florida, where she enrolled this summer.
Many of the students see college as an extremely necessary renovation.
Most Stoneman Douglas graduates go to college and, prior to the shooting, Aria Siccone never questioned that she would, too.
“People say that college experience is the best time in life and I wish I could do that. But at the same time, I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it, ”said Siccone, 17, who avoids shopping malls, cinemas and other public places. Sometimes she is jealous of friends who have had happy moments at other schools. The honored former student fears an irritating voice that says she cannot succeed without college.
“It’s scary to think about it because going to college is the normal way and I just want to go the normal way,” she said.
On the verge of the next stage, many of the students are finding the balance between mourning a tragedy and moving on, for themselves and for those who have died.
“As children, we must be the innocent; we must be untouchable, ”said Servaites, 18. “Now we are at this point where we cannot have that childhood we deserve and, as a result, we are angry, upset and just trying to do something about it.”
Price is not sure what his future will bring. Wherever she goes, her purpose will be Alyssa. Perhaps that is why she is drawn back to Florida.
“I find it impossible to find out what I want to do with my life, since school has never been my main focus in the past four years,” she said. “I definitely want to go to school in Florida and see where life takes me.”