Five years to the day a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the community still struggles to recover from the nightmare.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that the painful impact of the massacre on Valentine’s Day still can be felt at the homes of children, teachers, and first responders who were there. The day also impacts thousands who saw friends shot or who waited hours to learn if their loved ones escaped the shootings.
"It has taken certain people longer to show their emotions," said Matt Deitsch, a friend of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the shooting. "I didn't seek therapy until after six months. Some people still haven't had their mental health needs addressed."
Dr. Scott Poland, a professor in the College of Psychology at Nova Southeastern University, noted: "There is a tendency to say you should be over that by now, or say I understand what you are going through when we could never understand. It's a challenge every day for some people just not to let the grief and fear consume them."
And for some people it doesn't matter how far away from the shooting scene they are.
Aalayah Eastmond, 21, who now attends college in Washington D.C., avoids going to stores as much as possible this time of year.
Doing so brings back memories of the flowers and heart-shaped candy boxes strewn on the floor as she and her classmates ran to different corners of the room to escape the gunfire. She eventually hid under the body of a blood-soaked classmate.
"Valentine stuff is triggering," she said. "I have to stay away from that section. Valentine’s Day for rest of the world doesn’t look or feel the same as it does to me."
Sari Kaufman still lives with the painful memories of that day.
"It's important to understand we don’t just move on," she said. "There will never be a point where we just move on. It's important to talk about the silent toll it takes on us every single day."
The school shooter was sentenced to life without parole for the 2018 murders after the jury said in October that it could not unanimously agree that he should be executed.
The jury's recommendation came after seven hours of deliberations over two days.
But whenever Kaufman is introduced to someone, they often ask where she is from. "I don't always identify myself as being from Parkland because of the burden of talking about that day and explaining it with people you just meet," she said. "There’s an emotional toll."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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