One month ago I cried on my way to work, thinking of the dead children. Seventeen gone, cut down in their school, slaughtered by a very troubled teenage boy armed with a military-style weapon and a great deal of ammunition. I sat in the parking lot, unsure if I could enter the building and do my job. Never in my 21-year career have I felt so broken — not after Heath High School, Westside Middle School, Thurston High School, Columbine High School, Platte Canyon High School, Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook Elementary. I'm leaving out many school shootings, but these are the ones that I remember. But no, I didn't feel broken until the day after Feb. 14. I thought I had lost hope that day.

But then, I could hear their voices. You could not mistake the sound rising up from the children who survived that day. The Parkland students let out a scream of Never Again and Enough. They demanded their school massacre be the last, and they shook their fists at the adults who failed them. They took all of their emotional — and sometimes physical — trauma and used it as fuel for action. They organized. They mobilized. And students of all ages and walks of life across our country are echoing their call. They recognized that adults were not going to do the right thing until the children demanded that they do so.

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They have been relentless and fearless and unwavering — they deserve to live and feel safe more than you deserve to own a gun at 18, or a weapon of war, or large-capacity magazines, or kits to turn "hunting" semi-automatic guns into automatic weapons.

A generation of warriors has been born. I am so proud of them. I am so thankful to them for filling me with hope again.

Michelle Pulley

Longmont