Wednesday, February 14th 2018 was just a normal day for me and I was sitting in the school library during 9th period. I looked up to the TV, which is always on a news channel, and I saw images of students walking out of a school in a line. It took me a second to figure out that there had been a shooting and the headline on the screen confirmed my hypothesis.
I knew it was not the first time, but watching those live scenes made a shiver run down my spine. My first thoughts were for the students and for the teachers and I was hoping no one was hurt. Well, I was wrong.
Later that night I got more details and found out that 17 people lost their lives. This was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
A lot of students at HHS were touched by this horrible tragedy and two of them decided to speak out. Juniors Lucy Nielsen and Chyna Delker wrote this poem the following day:
“It Didn’t Happen at My School”
It’s funny
I never thought that grief could bring us all together
That the loss of one life could affect us all
But 400 seems to have done the trick
It didn’t happen at my school, but it didn’t have to
It’s funny
I never thought that my education would be compromised by a book falling on the floor
That a door closing in a nearby classroom would make me instinctively duck my head
But the unthinkable is now too thinkable
It didn’t happen at my school, but it didn’t have to
It’s funny
I never thought that the Kevlar vests I only saw on TV would end up being normal to see in my school hallway
That my school wasn’t just paying for teachers, but it was paying for crisis intervention officers
But my school never knows if it’ll be next
It didn’t happen at my school, but it didn’t have to
It’s funny
I never thought that I’d have to worry about being killed at school
That rumors would float around about the second week of school starting with a shooting
That Facebook would be flooded with concerned parents asking the school for answers
That I’d see a tweet telling me to stay home from school if I valued my life
That my dad would wake up in a panic because he had a nightmare that I got shot at school
That that same day officers would search every single locker
That I’d hear about a gun being found in one of those lockers
I never thought I’d actually feel that fear
It didn’t happen at my school -that time- but it didn’t have to
It’s not funny
I never thought that the lessons I learned at school wouldn’t just be algebra
That the lessons I learned at school would be how to hide silently
How to fit twenty students behind a bookshelf
How the doors can never be open during class
How a coat can hide a weapon
How a backpack can hide my death
How I should play dead if and when the time comes
How I should fear my peers
But that’s the price of living in a country where this is normal
I never thought that getting an education would mean risking my life
It didn’t happen at my school, but it didn’t have to.
After I read the poem I decided to talk to Nielsen to get more details about it.
“I have never written poetry before, but all day Wednesday I kept thinking the phrase ‘it didn’t happen at my school, but it didn’t have to.’ I was with Chyna, and we thought the best way to express this feeling was to write a poem about it,” Nielsen said.
One of the stanzas is about rumors of a shooting at HHS and Nielsen explained what happened.
“Last school year in September it was rumored that someone was going to bring a gun to school and shoot up the hallways. Lots of kids stayed home and police in Kevlar vests greeted students at the entrance. All of my teachers went over lockdown drills with us that day and the atmosphere just felt very different,” Nielsen said. “I heard that the police found a gun in a locker but I can’t be completely sure. That day was very scary for a lot of us.”
Since February 14, people all over the U.S., especially students, are organizing marches and walkouts to ask for a serious change.
Nielsen also thinks that a change needs to happen, and soon.
“You cannot put the right to own guns over my right to not be killed at school. I’m not saying ban all guns, but I’m with the majority of U.S. citizens in my belief that background checks need to be way more efficient,” Nielsen said.
At school, we watched the video of the meeting that President Trump had with the survivors of the shooting and their families. I could not hold back tears while listening to a dad that lost his daughter and to a guy that lost his best friend.
I am from a different country so I don’t know a lot about the background of gun regulation, the NRA, or the second amendment, but I don’t think I need to be an expert to be able to say that this has to stop. Kids should not be afraid to be at school. My heart was broken when I saw how many of my classmates were surprised after I told them that we don’t have lockdown drills at my high school in Italy, as well as our doors are not locked all the time.
Teenagers should not be thinking about the best place to hide from a shooter. They should enjoy those years, have fun, and think about their future.
It’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that this future actually happens.
All those deaths could have been avoided. The best we can do now is make sure this doesn’t happen again.
As a teenager, I really hope that all this violence will stop one day. It’s possible if we all come together and focus on what is really important: the lives of the students and teachers.
