Normally news reports mean very little to a person when it comes to a tragedy. You can empathize with the people who have been affected by this horrible thing, but it still does not hit you as close to home as when you know the people affected.

A news report completely changes when you know the names in the report. Your heart shatters for the family and friends that knew him so dearly. Your heart breaks because that is a friendship that you have lost.

No one is in this alone. It may feel like it, but there are hundreds of people who are feeling the same heartbreak together. This is the time that we have to sit everything aside to be there for one another and to be a family.

We need to be each other's shoulders to cry on. There are a lot of people that are hundreds of miles away that are feeling the heartbreak we all are feeling in the community. There are people five minutes away feeling the heartbreak we are all feeling. We are all heartbroken.

We also need to remember those who were even closer to such a dear friend than ourselves. We all had our own relationships, but there are several people who were friends that are basically family to our dear friend. They were family to him and his family. They were his second home.

Most importantly though we need to keep our dear friend and his family in our prayers and thoughts. He made such an impact on everyone he came in contact with, and everyone loved him.

We cannot let the mere details of this tragedy skew our thought of this family, and we cannot let media skew the family background. This is where we all come in to survive the family.

This is going to be the hardest things in our lives for some of us, but we need to take this pain and heartache, and turn it into the great memories we had with our dear friends.

The pain and heartache our community feels will never be able to be put into words, and it should not have to be. We all are suffering a loss in some way.

I have never seen a community come together as much as Bel Air, MD to support such a loved family. We are all there for each other.

The graduating class of 2014 from C. Milton Wright High School will forever keep his memory alive. We have all lost a part of our school family too soon. This is pain that no one should have to endure, but we can all get through it together.

There will always be pain, there will always be a time of wanting to break down, but it does get better. It takes time to come to terms with everything that has happened. Try to turn the sadness into the great memories you created with such love ones.

May you rest in peace, and be saved from any more harm. You will never be forgotten.