How Valentine’s Day is different for the families of the Parkland victims

Reporter: Sydney Persing Writer: Matthew Seaver
Published: Updated:
Flowers laid out in front of the sign for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Flags sat at half staff on Monday in Florida to mark four years since the deadly shooting of 17 people and the injuries of 17 more at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Most people celebrate every year on Feb 14, but families in Parkland mourn.

Abby Finn, an FGCU counselor who helped the families of the victims, said, “it’s a different day for everyone, it’s a different day for me now forever. I don’t see Valentine’s Day in the same way anymore. I’m not wearing red today. I’m wearing blue because red can be associated with the blood loss of the people who had died.”

For Finn, Valentine’s Day brings back tears, trauma, and memories of hearse after hearse after hearse.

Mere hours after the massacre, Finn went to Parkland with the Red Cross Trauma Response Team. She consoled families, students and first responders.

“It becomes a different kind of memorial. It’s associated with the grief and loss. But it also needs to be associated with the survival and the motivation,” said Finn

RELATED: Remembering the victims of the Parkland school shooting

Perhaps no one better exemplifies survival and motivation than Tony Montaldo. His beautiful, bright, loving 14-year-old daughter Gina died that deadly Valentine’s Day.

“We really try and come together. And as I implore each of you to take some time to remember the victims, we spend time remembering our daughter. The fun times that we had, the great times as a family,” Montaldo said.

Love isn’t ever as simple as roses and chocolates. It’s painful, deep, and everlasting.

Montaldo said, “you know, for our family, this, this event isn’t one day a year thing. We miss her every day. And we have to deal with her loss every single day.”

Parkland changed so many lives including Abbe Finn’s. She said she used to have her counseling students on Valentine’s Day make valentines to themselves and write what they love about who they are.

After the Parkland shooting, she changed the exercise. They still draw a valentine, still in the shape of a heart, but one that’s fractured. Now they write what’s broken their hearts on one side, and what has mended them on the other.

(CBS Local Miami)

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