Vegas Strong
Two years ago my hometown experienced the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the history of the United States.
I have always hesitated to share my thoughts about this event because I wasn’t at the concert, and even though I was in my first year of medical school I was not involved in caring for patients in any way. There are countless other people whose experience related to this tragedy, I feel, is much more important than mine, and I want to acknowledge that first and foremost.
…
A few weeks before 1 October, my dean asked if I would be the student speaker at the annual UNLV Foundation Dinner, which thanks some of their community scholarship donors. The dinner took place a little over 1 week after the shooting, so of course I edited my speech accordingly.
It was both eerie and meaningful how small my edits to the speech ultimately were. Where I had initially planned on noting my own resilience in the face of darkness, it was natural to talk about the resilience shown by all of us Nevadans, and others, in the face of such an immense tragedy. And still two years later, I believe for many of us the major thing we choose to focus on when thinking about this event is the resilience and love our community continues to show to each other.
I love the philosophy and choose to believe that what defines us is not what happens to us, but how we react; and it is so amazing that my hometown continues to put this philosophy into action through endless acts of kindness and light.