CNN’s Brooke Baldwin teared up on Tuesday while reading an emotional letter a mother wrote to her daughter who was killed nearly one year ago during the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. Baldwin choked up on-air while reading the letter from Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa Alhadeff was one of the 17 people killed inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. ADVERTISEMENT “I’m going to try to get through this,” Baldwin said before reading the letter, which Alhadeff published through an online project called Dear World. In the letter to her daughter, Alhadeff reminisced about the previous Valentine’s Day and their last interaction before the mass shooting. The teenager was not looking forward to going to school that day because she wanted a valentine, like so many other 14-year-old girls, her mother wrote. “High school love is magic. I was 14 once and those butterflies had whirled inside of me too,” Alhadeff wrote. “I wanted that for you.” Baldwin stopped reading and took a deep breath. “I want to get through this because these words matter,” the CNN host said. Alhadeff wrote about surprising her daughter with a gift bag containing a pair of diamond earrings, a chocolate bar and a hair tie. Their last interaction was in the car as she dropped Alyssa off at school that morning. The letter details how the family has been coping in the year since the shooting, including her grandmother becoming a school safety activist and by the family getting a new dog named Roxy. Alhadeff wrote how she has since learned that her daughter once jumped off a bridge by the beach. “Alyssa, you jumped off a bridge?” Baldwin read from the letter. “There are things I do in your memory that I never thought I could or would ever do. See, a mother’s protective instincts don’t leave when we lose the ones we love.” Baldwin paused and looked away before continuing to read Alhadeff’s letter with tears in her eyes. “I talk to other moms who have lost children. We talk about you. We talk about their kids. But when we look into each other’s eyes, we see it. A fire.” Alhadeff, a former teacher, wrote to her daughter about winning a spot on the Broward County School Board in November. She also created Make Schools Safe, an organization dedicated to preventing school shootings. Alhadeff was in New Jersey last week as Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed Alyssa’s Law, named after her daughter. The law, passed in the Democratic-controlled state legislature with bipartisan support, equips all 2,500 public schools with silent panic alarms to help protect students in case of an active shooter or other emergency situation. “It’s Valentine’s Day,” she wrote in closing. “As I remember you, grief washes over me. But that grief emboldens me to fight for change. I wish I could take all the bullets for you. It’s been a year since I saw you.”<doc-sep>The mother of a teenage girl killed in the Parkland school shooting wrote a heartbreaking letter to her slain daughter ahead of the massacre’s one-year anniversary on Valentine’s Day. “It’s Valentine’s Day. A day full of love, chocolates and flowers,” Lori Alhadeff begins the note to her daughter Alyssa. “For me, it is more than that now. Last Valentine’s Day was the last time I saw you.” The 14-year-old New Jersey native was one of the 17 people shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, a year ago Thursday. “Like many 14 year old girls, you wanted a Valentine and were disappointed that you didn’t have one. High school love is magic… I wanted that for you,” Alhadeff writes in the post published on dearworld.org. The mother’s last words to her daughter that day were “I love you.” Since the shooting, Alhadeff writes that she’s won a school board position and started a non-profit called Make Our Schools Safe. She also wrote about a new New Jersey law, called “Alyssa’s Law,” after her daughter, that requires silent panic alarms in all state public schools. In the letter, she also tells her daughter about how much her bothers miss her and the new family dog Roxy — who likes kicking a ball around just like Alyssa, a high school soccer player. “As I remember you, grief washes over me. But that grief emboldens me to fight for change,” Alhadeff writes. “I wish I could take all the bullets for you. “It’s been a year since I saw you… It feels like yesterday. I just want you back.” Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday called for a statewide grand jury to probe whether school districts are following laws passed in the wake of the attack. With Post wires<doc-sep>WOODLAND PARK, N.J. – In the despair after the Parkland school shooting, a single devastating moment shook so many Americans – when grieving mom Lori Alhadeff took a reporter’s microphone, looked at the camera and shared her pain with the world. “The gunman, a crazy person, just walks into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting, shooting her and killing her,” Alhadeff said, her outrage growing with each word. “I just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements for my daughter’s funeral, who is 14,” she yelled. “President Trump, please do something. Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!” Alhadeff has heeded her own call to action in the year since a shooter opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Her daughter Alyssa, a beloved athlete and ninth-grader, was among 17 people killed that day. Since the shooting, Alhadeff has transformed from a stay-at-home mom who “was never a political person” into an organizer who founded a nonprofit called Make Our Schools Safe, won a seat on the school board and worked to influence political leaders all the way up to the White House. In doing so, she has joined a growing legion of parent activists who lost children to school shootings and are devoting their lives to prevent further violence. 'They have made change':1 year after carnage in Parkland, where key figures are now Last Thursday, Alhadeff, whose daughter grew up in New Jersey, visited the state capital in Trenton to witness Gov. Phil Murphy sign legislation, named Alyssa’s Law, which requires schools to install silent panic alarms that can alert law enforcement in an emergency. She will continue using her voice to push for change in honor of her daughter and the 16 others who died in the Parkland shooting, she said. “On Feb. 14, I had no control,” Alhadeff, 44, said in an interview with NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network. “Alyssa was taken in seconds. After that I just felt that – and still l feel that – Alyssa is with me. Alyssa is in my heart and she wants me to make sure this doesn’t happen ever again, and I need to be her voice now since her voice was silenced.” Remembering Alyssa The Alhadeffs moved from Woodcliff Lake in Bergen County five years ago to Parkland, seeking the family-friendly neighborhoods and top schools where they believed their children would be safe. Alhadeff had what she described as “the perfect life.” A self-professed “soccer mom,” she spent time taking her kids to practices and games, and fundraising for their teams. She played tennis and made dinner daily for her three children, including two sons, who are now 11 and 14, and husband, Ilan, who is a doctor. More:One year after Parkland shooting, survivor says she's found her 'voice' in activism Alhadeff described her first child, Alyssa, as full of joy and potential. A “phenomenal” soccer player who played midfield and wascaptain of her team, she dreamed of one day becoming a professional for the women's national team. She was a typical teen who loved boys, going out, having fun and hanging out at the beach, said her mother. One of Alyssa’s favorite places had been Long Beach Island on the Jersey shore, where her family has a house and where they vacationed every summer. Alyssa loved riding waves and walking in the sand. “Alyssa was so full of life,” Alhadeff said. “She had a beautiful smile and a laugh that was so contagious. She had an ability to bring people together.” On Valentine’s Day last year, Alhadeff rushed to the Parkland high school after hearing about shots fired. As she stood behind a police barrier outside the school, she learned her daughter was among the victims. Alyssa had been shot 10 times while in English class. “I lived in the Parkland bubble,” Alhadeff said. “I never thought in a million years that my daughter would be shot 10 times in her school as she tried to learn.” The next day, she visited her daughter in the morgue. Alhadeff's gaze swept across her daughter's body, “just looking at all the different places that she was shot.” She recalls trying to warm Alyssa’s cold body with her hands. Then Alhadeff left to arrange her daughter’s funeral. More:After Parkland shooting: A day-by-day fight over guns in America After that unimaginable morning, Alhadeff headed to the site where mourners and media had gathered near the school. She felt an urge to speak out. “To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to say,” she said. She walked along a line of reporters until she found one who agreed to hand over a microphone. The trauma she felt spilled out in an unwavering, emotional plea to the public. “President Trump, you say what can you do?” she said on CNN, her voice clear and pained. “You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands. Put metal detectors at every entrance to the schools. What can you do? You can do a lot. This is not fair to our families, that our children go to school and have to get killed!” While Alhadeff observed shiva, the seven-day mourning period of the Jewish faith, many people approached her and talked about the need for change. She knew she had to act, she said. As a former teacher skilled at outreach and public speaking, Alhadeff quickly took to activism and launched Make Our Schools Safe a month after her daughter was killed. In August, she was elected to the Broward County School Board. Making schools safer The organization led by Alhadeff and her husband has promoted creating "safe zones" or marked-off areas in classrooms that are out of sight of windows, practicing code-red drills on what to do if a gunman enters a school, and buying kits to treat traumatic injuries. They support “Dream Team” clubs for students to work with school administrators to improve safety. “We have to do everything possible to stop allowing a shooter to just walk onto campus,” Alhadeff said. “Our schools are soft targets and there are different parts of making schools safer.” In New Jersey, Alhadeff backed the panic-alarm bill renamed in her daughter’s honor and signed into law last week. She recently spoke about the measure before Trump’s cabinet in the White House and asked them to consider making it federal law, she said. More:Parkland school shooting panel backs arming teachers, rips responding deputies But Alhadeff's advocacy group does not push for gun control. That’s because it’s polarizing, said Alhadeff, and she feared it would slow down improvements that schools can make right away. “I know people are fighting that fight with the guns and I appreciate it,” she said. “I want to try to initiate things we can accomplish and all agree on now.” Despite a lack of federal action, Alhadeff is encouraged by states’ efforts to improve school safety. She has praised the federal government's recommendations in a post-Parkland report on school safety, including calls for more school-based police officers and mental health services. She also hopes more funding will be made available for school safety. “There has been progress, but obviously we have a long way to go,” she said. A painful anniversary On the morning of Feb. 14, family and friends will visit Alyssa’s graveat the Garden of Aaron at Star of David Memorial Gardens in North Lauderdale, Florida. In the afternoon, they’ll head to a local beach that Alyssa loved for a clean-up and a day of service. There, they will write messages to Alyssa in the sand. That night, they’ll join community members at a public memorial service. It’s about “being together and doing a lot of crying and healing and just getting through the day,” Alhadeff said. After that, it’s another day. “I just keep pushing,” Alhadeff said. “I get up every morning with short-term goals for the day. I have to just be out there in the public talking with people, trying to make change and trying to make a difference.<doc-sep>
The mother of Alyssa Alhadeff, who was among the students killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting massacre, penned a heartbreaking letter to her slain daughter as the anniversary of the shooting approaches. Alyssa, a 14-year-old freshman, was among the 17 students and staff shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. I wish I could take all the bullets for you. "Like many 14 year old girls, you wanted a Valentine and were disappointed that you didn’t have one. High school love is magic... I wanted that for you," Lori Alhadeff wrote in a post on dearworld.org. Dearworld.org says it's a non-profit "that connects creators and communities to help people learn important things about each other." Alhadeff recalled the gift bag she gave her daughter that day: "It held a pair of diamond earrings to make you feel pretty, a chocolate bar to make you smile, and hair ties so you wouldn’t ask for mine." She said her last words to her daughter that morning were "I love you," and Alyssa replied, "I love you, too." "I wish I could take all the bullets for you," Alhadeff wrote. But she said her grief "emboldens" her "to fight for change." In May, months after the massacre, Alhadeff was elected to the school board. Last week, Alhadeff and her husband stood next to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as he signed "Alyssa's Law," which will require the state's public schools to install silent panic alarms. Alyssa was a native of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. "A mother’s protective instincts don’t leave when we lose the ones we love," Alhadeff wrote. "I talk to other moms who have lost children. We talk about you. We talk about their kids. But when we look into each other’s eyes, we see it. A fire." The last line of the letter reads: "I just want you back."