ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Survivors, families and members of the Orlando community gathered at the First United Methodist Church Friday night for the annual remembrance ceremony honoring the 49 lives lost at Pulse, 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no perfect recovery from a tragedy of this magnitude,\u201d Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. \u201cThere have been challenges. There\u2019s been setbacks, has been anger and there\u2019s been disappointments. But what I can promise as we look ahead to the next decade and beyond, is that our community will continue to offer love and hope to the families and survivors and all who are impacted by this tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2017, the year after the tragedy, the city of Orlando has held this ceremony every June 12. \u201cAs time marches on, we understand that grief and sorrow remain. And when we know that you’re resilient and that you’ll find strength and strength each and every day,\u201d Mayor Dyer said.<\/p>\n
Early on in the event, attendees took part in 49 seconds of silence. Shortly after that, Myreanna Bebe, the sister of Pulse victim Jason Benjamin Josaphat, \u00a0shared how his brother\u2019s legacy continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe lives in my memories. He lives in the way I move through this world. He lives in the way I love people. He lives in the way I fight for what is right. And he lives in what I refuse to stay silent. He still speaks to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The ceremony also featured musical performances from local artists and a poem reading by Laureate Camara Gaither. This year\u2019s event also had the participation from the Angel Action Wings, a volunteer group that has spent more than 10 years spreading messages of love and acceptance across the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the beauty of it is always to see the families gather, that the city continues to honor them and bring them these moments where they can be together, and they can feel what they need to feel as a group,\u201d member of the Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee Nancy Rosado said.<\/p>\n
Another emotional moment during the ceremony was when the church lights dimmed so that the families and the community could light the candles honoring the 49 angels. \u00a0Then, a video showed the family members of the 49 victims reading their loved ones names, followed by the tolling of 49 bells.<\/p>\n
Brandon Wolf, a Pulse survivor, said the day was difficult but meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew coming into today that it would be hard. It has been a hard day. I can\u2019t believe that it\u2019s been 10 years,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cIt feels both like a lifetime and no time at all. But this was really beautiful. It was beautiful to be in community with each other. I thought the music, the candles, the video was beautiful with the families and friends. It just it felt really good to be home.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the ceremony ended, attendees saw a rainbow in the sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Survivors, families and members of the Orlando community gathered at the First United Methodist Church…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[766,115,772,139,141,140,16956,835],"class_list":["post-305994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-massiel-leyva","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pulse-shooting","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}