50,000 Strong

I could not help but be affected deeply by everything I experienced that night.  I felt lifted up in love and peace by everyone around me.  I felt the unity and the togetherness of 50,000 people speaking with the same voice and feeling with the same heart.  I mourned for those I never had the chance to know.  I grieved for the loss to the community.  I celebrated the joy of love being expressed openly. I bonded with strangers and I made new friends. 

I think my friend Dawn said it best, “All of these years I have always thought of Orlando as the place where I lived.  But today, really for the first time, it felt like my home.”

After the vigil has ended we waited a while to leave as the crowd thinned out.  We noticed that an area around a tree had become a small memorial.  Earlier in the day I saw there were bags of rainbow colored sand, each with a small tea candle in them and tied to each bag a name of a victim, spreading out from the roots of a mighty tree.  These lights were now lit and amongst the sand and rainbow colors people had left their own candles and flowers and posters and it was beautiful.  I decided to lay my flowers down there, the ones I was carrying around all night that had been given to me by a young boy and his mother when we first arrived at the lake.  We spent a moment there in silent reflection before moving on.

As we made our way back along the lakeshore we passed the swans in the water and a few other random memorials including the large banner that had now become its own memorial in the grass. 

We then walked the streets back to the Dr. Phillips Center where Dawn and I decided to leave our candles.  It was important to me all through the evening to light candles from other candles.  I felt that was the poignant and meaningful way to create light, a flame that is shared and continues to burn and be passed on to another.  So all the candles we lit that night were from each other’s candle or even, in this case, a random stranger’s candle.  Dawn and I walked around the memorial again choosing to leave our green candles by the sign that we were drawn to most…one that included our communion with the LGBTQ community as friends and supporters.  We left them side-by-side above a large peace sign.  

I left too, my large battery operated candle, the one that said Be Strong on it right on the arm of a white couch that everyone had signed. 

There was a group gathered there all with their hands held up and chanting Orlando Strong.  And a few people releasing Chinese lanterns. 

The memorial is quite different at night illuminated by the lights of the tiny candles.  I am glad we visited at both times to experience the entirety of it.  

As I neared the end of our walk I took notice to a man who was standing by the memorial holding a sign under his arm.  He was taking a moment to reflect and grieve in his own way but I found the moment touching and I think it summed up how I was feeling.  His sign said simply "LOVE" in big huge letters.  It reminded me that each of us carries love with us every day.  It is often hidden and unseen.  Sometimes it is bold as we shout it loudly from the very core of our essence (times like tonight) but in all times it is with us.  It is a part of who we are as humans.  It is all we have of ourselves to extend to another.  It is the most valuable part of our being.  I wish only that the people who shared this experience with me and those who have at least read about it here, can remember to carry with them love wherever they go and to share it openly and willingly with EVERYONE. It is love that always stands up when others fail.  It is love that warms us, that holds us steady, that allows us to see right from wrong.  It is love that unites and binds us all as a human race no matter where we are in this world.  And it will be LOVE that will win in the end over HATE.  Because in this city we have answered the hate of ONE man with the love of 50,000.  

I finished my night by being anointed on my forehead with glitter by one the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence!  It was truly the perfect end to the perfect night. 

Experiencing this memorial and vigil is an experience I will never forget and one of the most powerful of my life.  It is a galvanizing moment, an awakening of the spirit.  It empties the soul of all you once knew and refills it quickly with pure love.  The power of 50,000 is like a river of emotion, dynamic and changing, its ebb and flow in unison with the resonance of light.  It creates its own music that lingers in your head long after the sound has quieted. 

One on my FB posts, a friend said “The world should have more people like you…” and I replied “It has at least 50,000 people exactly like me.  And all of them here in Orlando…”

What has been gained by this city in the wake of this tragic loss is of value beyond measure.  It is a city unified, a world altered, a community strengthened.  It is memory pure and raw engraved in all of us.  It is one unified pulse, one heartbeat that is shared now globally.  It is light to drown out the darkness.  It is stillness in a mighty torrent.  It is grief exchanged for healing.  It is a burden of sadness removed from the families of the 49 and shared now by the entire world.  

I hope that I will always remember this day exactly as it was and that all the good that came from something so bad will not be undone by test or time.  I am blessed to have shared in such a powerful and meaningful day in our city’s history. Last night changed me forever.  There is no greater place to stand than beside a friend in reverence to love and unity.  50,000 lights illuminated the city with love and banished the darkness of hatred (because love always wins). 

My post on FB after my long drive home that night included one photo of the lake shore with its beautiful lights and my words, “Tonight my brilliant city of Orlando stood 50,000 strong against the hatred and violence. We stood together side by side, hand in hand and heart to heart and raised thousands of tiny candles in what was the most peaceful, genuine, emotional display of love I have ever witnessed. I am proud to call this city home.”