If I Don’t Make It, I Love You

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 I received a direct message through my Twitter account from Zach Kindy, who was interested in learning more about the book project. He’d heard of the call from another one of our contributors, Mollie Davis, a survivor of the Great Mills High School shooting. After Amye and I began sharing more details about the book publicly, more survivors began to come forward with their stories.

Zach was a student at Episcopal School of Jacksonville when the headmaster, Dale Regan, was shot and killed by a former Spanish teacher. I admitted to Zach, I’d never heard of this shooting until he reached out to me. The Episcopal shooting was covered locally in Jacksonville, Florida, and didn’t reach a national scale. Over the phone Zach talked about a popping noise he heard while in science class. It was like bags of popcorn popping. This was a common simile survivors often used to describe the sound of the assault rifle inside their school.

Hours later Zach learned that the noise he heard was the sound of his headmaster being shot, and then the shooter turning the gun on himself. We never thought anything of him, Zach said of the Spanish teacher turned shooter. He was quiet, but we never thought he’d kill someone. Zach paused. This is why I don’t think teachers should have guns in the classroom, he added.

Later Zach introduced me to Dorothy Poucher, a young poet, who attended Episcopal when the shooting occurred. She writes about growing up in the aftermath of her school shooting and that i am a kid in a dark room. Since then I’ve spoken to Dorothy about her writing goals and activism. I’ve also spent time talking to Zach about his transition and current illnesses.

Amye and I became close with many survivors, a natural development after you listen to some of the most intimate details of their lives. In the beginning of this project, I often worried that we wouldn’t have enough stories, and we wouldn’t be able to connect with survivors. I was wrong.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of those affected by school shootings, either through primary or secondary experience. Now I realize we’ve only just begun, and there aren’t enough pages to share the innumerable amount of stories about the aftermath of school shootings. My work with Zach and Dorothy confirmed that for me. I had not, until Zach reached out, even heard of the Episcopal shooting. But I hope our work together will inspire more survivors from school shootings that haven’t made national headlines to speak out and share their stories.

LOREN KLEINMAN, EDITOR

OCTOBER 2018

The following staff were shot and killed at
Episcopal School of Jacksonville:

Dale Regan, 63, headmaster

MARCH 6, 2012

By Dorothy Poucher

Dorothy Poucher attended Episcopal School of Jacksonville when the shooting occurred. She wrote this poem in 2017 about her experience growing up after the shooting, and read it at the March For Our Lives event in March 2018.

i am a kid in a dark room

i haven’t got the time

a girl sobs beside me,

but i can’t even hear her

fear drowns out her cries

i am a kid in a dark room

someone else tells me whether i live or die

i am owner of nothing

not even my mind

do they think i do not mind?

i mind.

i am a kid in a dark room

i can not shut my eyes

i see nothing, but i keep on staring

wondering when you will come

to claim my life

i am a kid in a dark room

i hear but i cannot speak

is your heart still beating

in another dark room

across the stream

i am a kid in a dark room

my mother’s hands calm my shaking

she cries herself, from fright

i look right through her

is it day or night?

i am a kid in a dark room

i sleep peacefully

my darkness rests deep in my chest

where i let it sit

where i have contained its unrest

i am a kid in a dark room

time pulls at my strings

tells me when i can cry,

when i can whine.

when can i scream?

i am a kid in a dark room

their words press on me

remind me it is not over just yet

coax from a deep sleep,

the beast

now I am a kid in the dark

and I am not alone tonight,

anger sits in a holster on his hip

and fear lays comfortably by my side

WE DESERVE OUR LIVES

By Zach Kindy

Zach Kindy was a student at Episcopal School of Jacksonville at the time of the shooting.

On March 6, 2012, I woke up as any student would: tired and reluctant to go to school. It was Tuesday morning and close to spring break. My brain checked out of all things school, and I was ready to spend my days sleeping and watching Netflix. I rolled out of bed and went through my regular morning routine: got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, and sat on the couch scrolling through my phone, the news playing in the background.

After my mom and brother finished getting ready, we loaded up in the car with me in the front seat and my brother in the back. When I finally got to school, I walked through the halls to find my friends. I heard gossip about how Mr. Schumerth, a Spanish teacher, got fired earlier that morning. I never had him as a teacher, but often spent time in his classroom with my friends, who had him for homeroom.

The day seemed normal until about 1:00 p.m. in science class. All of the sudden we heard a loud noise, as if someone decided to pop kernels of popcorn in a duffel bag. The classroom phone rang. My teacher picked it up. We all wondered what the call would be about. Was someone getting out of class early? Who had to go down to the office? In the middle of the call, three bells rang. Our teacher told everyone to get down and be quiet as he set down the phone, shut off the lights, and closed the blinds. For hours we sat against the wall in the dark. The people that didn’t leave their phones in their locker were scrolling down social media and texting to loved ones. As for the rest of us, we sat reading TIME Magazine, talked quietly, and tried to consider situations that would cause this. Someone said the weather, but it was clear and sunny. Another said it was a drill, and another said someone was going to shoot up or bomb the school. After two hours, we finally got an answer. A classmate held up her phone high in the air, crying hysterically.

“Mrs. Reagan has been shot,” she said choking on her words.

How could we comprehend the fact the head of school was killed? The silence that already existed, got even quieter. There was a heaviness in the room.

Hours later, we were released from the classroom. We were told to quickly get any belongings we needed from our lockers and then go to the plaza. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as I went to my locker to grab my phone. After I got my phone, I called my mom and she told me that my grandparents were already on their way to pick me up and that she would see me once I got home. After I hung up and walked to the plaza, I spotted my grandparents’ white truck. I said goodbye to my friends as walked toward them. I opened the back door, stepped up into the truck. Still not knowing quite what to feel, I sat in silence as my grandparents questioned if I was all right. But as we drove away from the school, it all hit me. Outside the window, my teachers and classmates were broken and in tears.

For the rest of the day at home, I sat and watched the news. I learned that Mr. Schumerth had gotten fired that morning and came back with an AK-47 in a guitar case. He shot the head of school, Dale Reagan, and himself. I was in shock. How did my school, which I considered a safe place became a nightmare of chaos? For the rest of the day, I watched headline after headline on the TV like “Murder-Suicide at Episcopal.” Clips of the 911 call endlessly looped on news stations. Today I think, that the fact our school’s shooter was a teacher is an example of why teachers shouldn’t carry guns.

The next day, I woke up still thinking about the shooting. Episcopal authorities had closed the school but reopened it for a few hours for a memorial service, so people could grieve together. I remember attending, seeing hundreds of river rocks decorated with pictures and words of love, hope, and strength. Every confused thought and question I had about the situation was never explained, never answered: How could something like this happen? How could someone who seemed like such a nice person do something so horrible?

The Monday after spring break everyone returned to school. I didn’t know what to expect and found myself confused and slightly uncomfortable. The sky was cloudy, and it felt strange to be back. School was school, but its atmosphere was drastically different. There was an odd amount of silence. No one knew what to say to each other.

Several days later, school finally began to feel relatively normal, and over time our community healed, but unspoken scar remained. For me, this experience serves as a prominent reminder of how sometimes the safest of spaces can become unsafe in an instant.