Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of the horrific Pulse nightclub shooting, when a gunman took the lives of 49 people at the club just south of downtown Orlando.
The tragedy took place in Orange County, but its tragic impacts were felt here in Osceola.
Amanda Alvear was 25 at the time and died within those walls on June 12, 2016, while simply trying to have a good time on a weekend at Latin Night at a club. She lived in Davenport at the time, and her family members live in Kissimmee.
Luis Conde and Juan Rivera Velasquez had been together for 14 years after meeting in Puerto Rico. They moved to the area and, for seven years, operated the Alta Peluqueria D’Magazine beauty salon on Osceola Parkway in Kissimmee, which became a makeshift shrine to them in the days and weeks after the shooting. Months later, Velazquez’s family opened a new salon, named D’Magazine by Juan P., on Central Florida Parkway in south Orlando, keeping a tribute to Velasquez and Conde alive.
On the anniversary of the shooting, among the public tributes that took place, crosses honoring all 49 victims were on display through the weekend at the Orange County Regional Historical Center in downtown Orlando. The crosses, designed by Greg Zanis, were displayed at Pulse in the days after the shooting, and were signed by friends and family at that time. In the exhibit, the crosses remain exactly as they were from 2016. Zanis began building them in honor of those killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, and since that time built and delivered over 26,000 crosses to sites of mass shootings and natural disasters across the United States.
The crosses were grouped by those who attended Pulse together that night, so the crosses for Conde and Velasquez, and Alvear and her friend Mercedez Flores, sit side-by-side.
“Anybody who was there at the club together, we always keep their items together,” said history center Curator Jeremy Hileman. “We keep the exhibit monitored, not that we think people would have ill intentions, but from a preservation standpoint. The crosses are very fragile.”
Mayra Alvear, Amanda’s mother, said while she has seen them in the past, she did not get to see the crosses this year — because of the many other tributes the community puts on this time of year.
“How they group them is wonderful. It brings parents of children who were friends together as friends themselves. You have to learn how to survive losing a loved one,” said Mayra, who also had another son lose a cancer battle. “You learn to accept they now live with their loved ones in Heaven, and the way to leave their legacy here is to celebrate what they did.
“Some people don’t like going to the memorials. It can be very, very hard. But they are a sign of a wonderful, loving community. And it makes me realize that people will never forget as years pass. (Pulse club owner and OnePulse organization leader) Barbara Poma promised she’d do what she could to keep these memories alive.”
