April 2018

PARKLAND LIFE
PARKLAND REDEFINED
by Jill Vogel
You know from my previous columns how I discovered
Parkland. You know how I have loved riding my bike
around our small corner of paradise. You have been
introduced to my life and how I made friends. You know I have
loved my sunny days filled with things that make me happy and
enrich my life. That changed on February 14, 2018.
We often say — “where were you when John F. Kennedy was
shot? Or where were you on 9/11? Or where were you when
Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?” Those moments in time
will be forever branded in our brains. February 14, 2018 is
now indelibly stamped in mine. I was playing in a Mah Jong
tournament in Tamarac when my watch beeped with an alert
from NBC 6. Glancing down I caught my breath — there was
a report of a school shooting in Parkland. As further reports
came in my friend and I left for home. Time kind of slowed
down. It took us hours to get home, going from street to
street around Coral Ridge and the Sawgrass trying to find a
street that wasn’t closed off. There were hundreds of cars and
emergency vehicles with flashing lights. We watched teary
reunions on every street and people standing around crying and
talking on their phones. We listened to the radio. We heard the
shooter was apprehended. We heard that students were still
sheltered around the school. We wept as we heard that there
were multiple fatalities. We finally got home. It was not until
later that we heard the awful news that 17 innocent students
and teachers were slaughtered in our own Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School.
My husband Neil and I were glued to the television. As we
watched, we saw Parkland children being led out of school, with
their arms raised, by rifle-carrying police. We heard sirens and
helicopters until it was pitch black outside. We received calls
and texts from friends and family needing confirmation that we
were OK and that it really had happened in our Parkland.
Seventeen funerals, candlelight vigils, memorials, and an ocean
of tears followed. Our lovely Parkland was forever changed.
How do we move on? The answer for me was provided by
our incredible MSD students. Stoneman students grew up
overnight. Their appearances on television, in the halls of
Tallahassee and Washington, and at the CNN Town meeting,
showed the rest of the world how we must act and how we
carry on. We must never define Parkland as paradise lost, but
as a place where our combined strength will create change,
change enough to say NEVER AGAIN. I am working with
a group, started by my husband in Heron Bay, to focus on
changes necessary in schools for both increased safety and to
provide more psychological services. I don’t know where this will
lead but I am hopeful.
Parkland has been forever changed and our paradise has been
lost. Adam and Eve lost their paradise but gained the harsh gift
of knowledge. Maybe losing our Parkland paradise is leading
us to knowledge, the knowledge that this can never be allowed
to happen again. Maybe, just maybe, we will emerge stronger
and Parkland will be the place where we stopped allowing the
murder of our citizens. Only this way can we honor the dead
and support the survivors. We owe it to Alyssa, Martin, Gina,
Joaquin, Luke, Cara, Alaina, Meadow, Alex, Helena, Carmen,
Peter, Jamie, Nicholas, Scott, Aaron, and Chris to create
change.
My beloved Parkland will be redefined. Maybe this redefinition is
Parkland Strong! P
24
APRIL 2018