Aquinas community unites after student tragedies

By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

Photography: TOM TRACY | FC

FORT LAUDERDALE | It’s been a challenging year for the St. Thomas Aquinas High School community, after the untimely loss of three young people in the past year, including a member of the class of 2014 recently killed in a traffic accident.

“When you are a child and you lose your parents you become an orphan; if you’re a spouse (and lose your loved one) you become a widow or widower; but there was never a name for when a family loses a child,” said Wendy Kalis, a junior class moderator and leadership teacher at Aquinas.

She spoke about the situation at the start of a May 21 charity walk in support of the Coral Springs-based Bobby Resciniti Healing Hearts Foundation.

The Healing Hearts nonprofit organizes events to raise support for family counseling and awareness of the needs of parents who lose a child. The students at St. Thomas Aquinas have hosted several Healing Hearts charity events in recent years.

“ Unfortunately this has become a need but it is in God’s glory that we are able to provide help for families in a time of profound sadness,” Kalis said, adding that “it has been a very difficult year for Aquinas.”

Several hundred students, parents and other members of the community gathered at the high school’s track and field area to walk for several hours on a hot Saturday morning and mingle with some of the high school community’s grieving families, who were also on hand.

Students Kylie Rodriguez and Briana Suarez helped organize the walk.

“My mom lost her brother (when she was young) and today is the anniversary that he died, so it is nice to go to this event for everybody,” said Kylie, who was joined at the event by her niece, Ariana Rodriguez, a toddler who joined the walk.

Around the field were posted memorial photos and poster reminders of other youthful loved ones not associated with the high school whose lives ended prematurely.

Jamie Baker, who works in the restaurant business, lost her son, John Baker, a student at Aquinas, last fall after a boating accident. She came out to the event after learning about it through the school’s staff.

“John would be very pleased; he walked this same event for three years here at St. Thomas Aquinas,” said Baker, whose family are members of St. Anthony Parish in Fort Lauderdale.

“John had a sister, Chloe, who is a freshman this year, so all of the kids here have totally embraced her and made her comfortable,” Baker added.

Scott Sfiorilli, a South Florida resident and Publix manager who is active in the Healing Hearts Foundation, was also on hand.

“It is a way to help the parents heal,” Sfiorilli said. “There are thousands of places out there to go and grieve but there wasn’t anything out there to help parents to heal, and there are people in different stages of this or a month into it who may think their life is going to end.”

“Through others I have watched and can attest that it does get better over time and you are able to heal as long as you open yourself up to get healed,” Sfiorilli said, noting that he has not personally lost a child but learned about grieving though other families.

“The hardest part for me is the stories that go behind each of these pictures, whether it is a car accident, a tragic murder, or it could be a suicide,” he said. “Sadly to say there seems to be a spike in suicides, and with that the parent maybe doesn’t feel that they should be able to go out here and grieve their child.”

Brie Totfalusi, a junior at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, took advantage of the walk to reunite with parent Lauren Hirsch, whose son Wesley Spano died at the beginning of this year. Brie credits him for performing a random act of kindness on her behalf one year ago.

Brie was so distraught by Wesley’s passing that she created a website called “W.H.Y. Wesley Helping You” to encourage young people to seek help for themselves or others when in a depression or suicidal mindset.

“She started out doing bake sales, bracelet sales, and she has T-shirts coming so that we can raise funds to bring education on mental health into places that we have noticed after Wesley’s passing is lacking, such as high schools and colleges � especially college freshmen and sophomores at colleges and even in the middle school,” Hirsch said.

“Everybody seems to be afraid of the word ‘suicide’ or ‘depression,’ and Brie is out there putting out the word on a daily basis giving words of encouragement and how important life is and what a special gift life is,” Hirsch added.

“We all need to learn kindness from a tragedy like this and if we can all band together perhaps we can avoid future Healing Hearts ‘angels’ and keep our angels here on earth.”

With concern rising about youthful bullying and misuse of online social media, Brie added that social media has a potential to be both very beneficial when used correctly but also to ruin a young person’s life.

“I am trying to start a club and have someone come in once or twice a month and talk about self-confidence, self-awareness and to talk about mental health and suicide,” she said.