Warning: This post deals with suicide, and may be triggering for some readers.
Two school friends smiling widely into the camera, both in their final year of high school, both with their whole lives ahead of them.
Lives which were cut short by an unfathomable act of evil.
The photo shows former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Sydney Aiello and Meadow Pollack, both victims of the Florida school shooting which claimed the lives of three staff members and 14 students last Valentine’s Day.
Meadow was killed in the gunman’s open fire, but Sydney, 19, who manage to escape, took her own life last weekend, crippled by survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder.
A little more than a year after this photo was taken, both are gone.
In February, Meadow was killed in the Parkland shooting. This week, Sydney took her own life.
Please consider donating to her family to help cover some of the funeral costs. https://t.co/qxeUeFLhx1 pic.twitter.com/xSnMPAU0bD
— Kenneth Preston (@kennethrpreston) March 21, 2019
Yet another tragic loss for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas community to mourn.
Sydney’s mother, Cara Aiello, told CBS Miami her daughter had struggled immensely with her mental health in the year following the tragedy. While she reportedly never asked for help, her PTSD left her afraid of being in a classroom, making it difficult to attend college classes to become the medical professional she aspired to be.
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And whose father, Andrew Pollack, became the face of the Parkland victims when he made a powerful address to the White House just a few days after the shooting, calling for an increase in school safety rather than changes to America’s gun laws.
wow. didnt know the nra were the victims
The NRA and republicans were both attacking the students that had spoken out about gun violence.Young people who are eligible to vote are signing up to in large numbers to do so on the back of school shootings
'face of parkland victims' calling for increase in school safety rather than changes to the gun laws.
i seem to recall the actual victims/survivors calling pretty damn loud for changes to gun laws as well as school safety.
the nra on the other hand ....