Photo: Courtesy (2); Darian Williams/Instagram
It has been five years since a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., claimed thelives of 17 students and staff members.
The emotional fallout hasn’t ended, but here, three survivors open up to PEOPLE about their journey through grief and trauma and how they’re carrying on.
Victoria Gonzalez Honors Her Grief — But Makes Equal Space for Gratitude
Courtesy
On Feb. 14, 2018, the day of the massacre, Victoria Gonzalez waited at a Marriott hotel for 10 hours for news about her best friend and partner, Joaquin Oliver.
“I remember the pattern on the carpet in that hotel because of my head was down on the table, staring at the floor with these thoughts bouncing back and forth in my brain —losing safety, losing anything that you could trust,” she recalls. “I didn’t realize in that instant, of course, the severity of it, but I felt the storm that was coming.”
Oliver, a 17-year-old seniorwho loved basketball, was among the 17 killed that day, five years ago — a stretch of time Gonzalez continues to grapple with.
“What I’m understanding as five years approaches is the reality of how time was stolen. For me to sit here and say, ‘Wow, this is five years ago,’ that baffles me,” says Gonzalez, 22. Some days it feels like it happened yesterday, and other days, she says, it feels like a lifetime ago.
Since then, Gonzalez has worked through a spectrum of emotions ranging from pain to guilt. But as time passes, she has gained perspective and learned to be grateful for what she has.
“This incident has shown me there’s no time to waste. It’s important to honor every way that you feel,” she says. “I was gifted the love that was profound enough to help me understand that grief and gratitude can exist at the same level. I think what saved me along this process is not allowing one to overpower the other. Basically, grief exists because of the love.”
She says finding the balance between the two emotions is hard work, but it’s something she actively works on.
“If I wake up and I want to cry and walk around my neighborhood with my headphones and a cup of coffee, that’s what I’m going to do. If I wake up and I want to dance in the kitchen, then that’s what I’m going to do,” she says. “And I’m trying my best every day just to remove the guilt around doing your best.”
Gonzalez has channeled her energy into her artwork, which she sells online. This week, she launched her website,84roses.com.
“I know that painting brings me joy. I know that even a painting that’s going to honor my sadness, even the bluest possible painting on the wall, I’m going to find joy in because I expressed myself that way,” she says. “I used that paint and I made something.”
“I’m just grateful for my awareness of my emotions through it, and that’s what I try to share with others — as long as you’re present with yourself, you can manage any of it,” she says. “It can be the biggest boulder on your chest, but if you’re there and you can hold it for one second to get a breath in, then [you’ll be] okay.”
5 Years Ago, Brandon Dasent Began Living with Purpose
Brandon Dasent, a junior, usually spent the last 30 minutes of his day in the freshman building visiting with friends. But on Feb. 14, 2018, he fell asleep in his history class. “Sleeping might have saved my life,” he says.
“I assumed that it was a laptop cart falling down the stairs, or some kids banging on the lockers,” he recalls. By the time he evacuated to a field, he’d realized the situation was far more serious. “You just felt this overwhelming sense of fear grow among everyone. It was like a wave.”
Helicopters, police sirens and SWAT tanks quickly appeared. Dasent and his classmates left campus and headed toward safety, unaware that the shooter walked among them.
“He was right there with us, and none of us had any idea,” he says.
Dasent and his classmates remained safe as they consoled each other. But videos and images were circling among them on their phones. In these moments, he realizes now, he endured severe trauma.
“We saw things that people posted, that the media never published, or probably never got their hands on, just absolute carnage. Some of the most grotesque, disgusting images that you could ever imagine,” he recalls.
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He eventually made his way home, but he couldn’t escape the memories of that day. Living a few blocks away from the school, he could hear the whirring helicopters and humming from the media trucks anchored near the school for weeks and months.
Dasent says everything changed for him that day. In order to cope, he became an advocate for gun violence prevention and began speaking to people across the country. Unlike some people who have the ability to cry and sit in their feelings, which he considers a healthy response, he prefers to remain busy.
In five years, he has cultivated a following on TikTok andInstagram(@breatheofficialpage). On these accounts, he advocates for social justice and amplifies stories of people who’ve had their lives stolen from violence or oppression.
“I choose to make my life about serving others, and helping others, and making sure that no one else has to have decades and decades of life stripped from them because someone with a gun, or someone with a badge that had a temper one day,” he says.
Dasent, now 22, is a senior at Florida International University, where he’s majoring in political science and communications. He’s studying for the LSAT to attend law school and wants to become a civil rights attorney like Benjamin Crump, who has represented many victims of police brutality.
“There’s absolutely no way I would’ve become this social justice activist, with a hunger and drive to help people in whatever way possible,” he says, “There’s absolutely no way I would have become this person, if it wasn’t for the shooting.”
Darian Williams Re-Learned How to Embrace Experience
Darian Williams/Instagram
“I could not be present in a single relationship because I was so scared of that abrupt ending to a relationship,” he says. “And since I was never present for the most painful moment, it was like I was just existing through life.”
In school, he was an avid photographer and videographer, and after graduating, he turned his passion into a business. At the time, he focused on “growing his bank account,” he said. But making money was not bringing him joy.
He reached out to Travis Chambers, founder of Chambers Media and founder of multiple experience hotels, which focus on unplugging and being mindful. Chambers encouraged Wlliams to move to Idaho where he could holistically use his skills.
“He was the first person to understand me in the sense that I wanted to create something bigger for the world through trauma,” he says. “For me, it was just making a lot of money, getting opportunities with vehicles to make other people money. For him, it was experiences, and everything he did was an experience.”
Williams sold his Porsche and most of his expensive possessions, and now finds joy in snowboarding and hiking through the mountains.
It has taken five years to feel human again, he says. Now, he says he can fully experience his feelings — even the sad ones.
“I just accept it as it comes and goes and I allow those thoughts and I allow the sadness and then I process it and I continue moving,” he says. “Every single moment in life really is a gift.”
source: people.com
